


What Goes Around Comes Around

by babyrubysoho



Series: Sea Wolf [3]
Category: Big Bang (Band), GTOP (Band)
Genre: 1890s, Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Character Development, Dark Past, Established Choi Seunghyun | T.O.P./Kwon Jiyong | G-Dragon, Eventual Happy Ending, Kwon Jiyong | G-Dragon-centric, M/M, Ocean, Origin Story, Payback, Period Typical Attitudes, Physical Abuse, Prequel, Psychological Drama, Revenge, Sailing, Sequel, Seunghyun Tries Not To Be Comforting, Sexual Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:33:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 40,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25933696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyrubysoho/pseuds/babyrubysoho
Summary: Jiyong and Seunghyun have managed to finish their first season as joint captains without killing each other. While drumming up crew together for their next voyage Jiyong encounters an old face, and finds himself slipping back into a past he never wanted to encounter again - while having to hold the Wolf back so he can enjoy his own vengeance to the full.
Relationships: Choi Seunghyun | T.O.P./Kwon Jiyong | G-Dragon, Kwon Jiyong | G-Dragon/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Sea Wolf [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861156
Comments: 52
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I was supposed to be getting on with something else but I was abruptly inspired to write a little continuation to this Sea Wolf series. Someone (they know who they are! XD) mentioned they'd be interested in some sequel or prequel, so here we have a bit of both.  
> It's a GTOP story but also a "dark and miserable x10" Jiyong origin story (which appears to be my forte these days...)
> 
> On that note, this fic contains dark and sensitive themes to do with sex and violence. I usually skate over those, but in this story they're focused on fairly graphically; not only that, but Jiyong's way of thinking about masculinity with regard to himself, and about the things that happen to him, is immensely unhealthy (not his fault!) and part of how he grows up to be the way he is in the first fic. So basically, please check the tags and archive warnings and read responsibly.  
> Otherwise, enjoy!

Beneath the scarred table Seunghyun had a hand on his thigh. Jiyong wasn’t fond of public affection, but he was currently tolerating it: he knew enough of the older man now to understand it wasn’t a measure of control but one of need – to know where his brother was when he couldn’t see him. A sign of attraction too, no doubt, Seunghyun was never shy about showing those, and Jiyong put up with it so long as he didn’t cross the line into his ridiculous poetic compliments. It was fortunate that their reputations were intimidating enough – especially in tandem – to deflect a lot of the confrontation two normal men touching this way might come in for.

“Stop,” ordered Jiyong as he sensed Seunghyun’s attention float away from the table. “No eavesdropping over there when I’m right here.” Just as Seunghyun was touching him, he was holding his brother’s forearm; he gave it a sharp squeeze, which ought to have caused a wince were it not for the hard muscles, like armor beneath his hand. Seunghyun blinked and turned back towards him, still too distant to see him but properly focused in his direction once more.

“Sorry, Jiyongie. I was just listening to-”

“I know what it was.” The Japanese voices in one corner, loud and confident – which you would have to be to drink in a solidly Korean establishment like this. “Leave them alone.” And that was what the hand on the arm was for: it was a leash. Seunghyun’s sight had not improved since the season’s end – the doctor said it might never – but his other senses had sharpened along with his instincts. The bigger man could spot someone who might be persuaded to fight him an entire street away, and he was spoiling for a brawl. Jiyong hadn’t let him try it on their crew – the specter of this ferocious creature held in check by his cold leash had been plenty effective in ensuring the hands’ meekness – and now the smaller man sensed his brother was looking to prove something. Or maybe he enjoyed fighting for its own sake. Sometimes Jiyong thought Seunghyun was at base just a big dog, for all his philosophy and inventions. Jiyong had no moral objection to violence, of course – only he preferred that it be useful.

“You’re going to keep me collared the rest of our lives,” he heard Seunghyun say ruefully in his beautiful bass voice. Nevertheless, he was smiling.

“You promised me anything I wanted,” Jiyong reminded him coolly. “And I want your mind on the job.” They were recruiting men for the Neukdae’s tuna season. Most of their sealing crew had scarpered – as usual – so after drumming up a few more at the Busan port office they had retired to this raucous waterfront jumak to round out the numbers: sailors were more likely to forget the Wolf and Viper’s evil deeds when drunk. Jiyong felt Seunghyun’s forearm flex beneath his hand.

“I don’t need a tenth of my mind for this job. And my body wants the exercise.”

“Not now.” He could feel the strength in that flex, the sheer physical power of the man. Jiyong had spent two decades resenting that, and had only lately become reconciled to it by the knowledge that _he_ was now its keeper, that it was subjugated to him entirely. Seunghyun knew it too, and seemed to revel in it in a way Jiyong couldn’t understand – but he could certainly reap the benefits. And during their nights in the Neukdae’s cabin, lengthened into indulgence now they were in port and the ship empty, he had let himself go so far as to look forward to it. Jiyong wouldn’t dream of saying so but he had grown to love the feel of Seunghyun’s strength; it did something visceral to his body. Of course he enjoyed dominating that strength too, Seunghyun beneath him and opened to him in an abandoned display of vulnerability. But he had never imagined it could be so good to be underneath Seunghyun in return, pressed down and filled up and no longer in charge of his own pleasure. He was under no illusions about that, mind you: it was only his certainty that one word could stop it that made such a thing possible – and in that respect Seunghyun was unique.

Jiyong was enjoying the thought of it, and of what they might do tonight; he was enjoying Seunghyun’s compliance, even the simple awareness of having someone at his side – and _on_ his side. Half in a daydream he ran his indolent gaze across the tavern, on the lookout for more likely seamen. As it drifted over a table by the door he felt a tremendous mental jolt, as if his ship had hit a reef at speed, his eyes forcibly arrested in their sockets. He froze, scar growing tight on his cheek as he leaned forward.

“Ow,” complained Seunghyun mildly, and Jiyong realized he was digging into his brother’s arm with fingers like fangs. “I said I’d stopped listening.” Jiyong didn’t reply; he didn’t think he could, his attention fixed on the man at the far table. _Was_ it him? He was older, of course, but… Jiyong thought back. Yes, the right age, more or less, in his late fifties, perhaps. He was clean-shaven now, but the eyes… It was him. “Jiyong?” he dimly heard Seunghyun add, followed by a noise of frustration; of course Seunghyun couldn’t see him or what he was looking at. The hand on his thigh tightened, that scarred, powerful hand Jiyong remembered so well. It had become a familiar sensation lately, a comfortable one, but now he flinched: because he had other memories too, memories attached to large hands and pain and anger and that _man_. One among many, but also the first – and the only one who had escaped.

Jiyong took a shuddering breath before he could help himself, then closed his mouth and carefully regulated his air. Ignoring Seunghyun’s questioning touch he pictured the ever-present slivers of ice in his belly – the place where men like Seunghyun carried fire – crystalizing, sharpening, growing as diamond-hard and lethal as they had ever been before Seunghyun came back into his life. It was him, the first, the one who had made Jiyong’s teenage sacrifice pointless: scarring himself, scarring Seunghyun with his words, and for what? That man had stripped him of every small illusion of strength more effectively than Seunghyun’s care ever did. And he had never paid.

“If you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” came Seunghyun’s low voice at his ear, “I am going to put you over my shoulder and haul you out of here for all to see – don’t think I don’t know where the door is!” The icicles sharpened even more at the idea, and for a moment Jiyong was distracted from his snakelike stare by a pang of dismay at the thought of being seen like that; of being seen by _him_.

“If you try,” he hissed, rounding on the bigger man, “the next time you sleep I’ll re-break all your ribs.” Instinctively his right hand found his cane, clinging to it; a small measure of security.

“Oh, so you _can_ hear me.” Seunghyun sounded perturbed, not at the threat so much as at Jiyong’s mental absence. He held fast to Jiyong’s leg and leaned closer, bringing his narrow circle of sight to bear on his brother. “You’ve gone white,” he said, huge eyes narrowing as he scanned Jiyong’s face. “You look like you did that night – when you wanted to kill me.”

“Be quiet.”

“Tell me.” Jiyong glanced down at Seunghyun’s hand, squeezing tight enough to bruise, to remind himself of whose it was and that it posed him no threat. Seunghyun’s damaged eyes caught the movement; he made a thoughtful sound, then let go. At that Jiyong experienced a mixture of gratitude, satisfaction – that Seunghyun had the sense not to hold him by force – and the comforting return of the cold. Seunghyun’s hand was hovering now, looking lost, so Jiyong took it calmly in his own.

“There’s someone here I know.”

“Not a friend, I gather,” Seunghyun concluded, his expression turning mildly amused. “I might have guessed you’ve as many enemies as me.”

“Correct,” said Jiyong, in the chilly tone that was part of his being. “Inoue Jiro. I knew him a long time ago and I haven’t seen him since – he’s an old man now. I thought he had died at sea or something.”

“Ah?” Seunghyun dropped back into seriousness at the Japanese name. Jiyong was careful to keep his eyes fixed on his brother; he wanted Seunghyun to have no inkling of where Inoue was sitting. “You mean you hoped he had.”

“No,” retorted Jiyong frigidly, the ice spikes rising towards his trachea. “The thought made me angry: I missed my chance back then. I thought I’d missed it forever.”

“Chance to what?” Seunghyun’s thumb moved across his knuckles.

“Pay him back.” Fingers closed tightly on his own; Seunghyun had that look on his face, the one men were so afraid of. Jiyong said it anyway, to show himself _he_ wasn’t. “When I first went to sea he was there; he had a lot of power then, in position and in person. He beat me and used me and I did nothing about it.” Seunghyun squeezed so hard he felt his bones ache, and welcomed the pain as a distraction. “By the time I’d figured out I could make him pay – by the time I’d started on the others – he was gone.” The bigger man had closed his eyes, breathing carefully; he was trembling. Jiyong knew how much restraint it took for Seunghyun not to say anything endearing or comforting at the best of times, and was grateful. While he was getting himself under control Jiyong returned his attention to the other table: Inoue was still there, drinking alone; not even the young Japanese sailors paid him any mind. Good, thought Jiyong vaguely.

“Jiyong…” said Seunghyun hoarsely. “Show him to me.”

“No.” Jiyong was pleased with how flat it sounded. “You’d have to be nose to nose with him before you saw him anyway.”

“Take me past where he is; once I’ve got a sense of him I can…”

“I don’t want to.”

“Please,” said Seunghyun. Jiyong liked that word coming from him, and the imploring tone. “I’ve held myself back half the season on your say-so, Jiyongie. You know I’ve been wanting to test myself – the way I am now, what I can _do_. This is the perfect time! Please – indulge me.”

“No.”

“Why not, dammit?” _There_ was the Wolf’s growl.

“Because if anybody is going to indulge himself it’ll be me.” Jiyong stared remotely at the old sailor, his body still tall and hard with work; well, that simply meant there was more of him to strike at. “He was my first – and I’ll be his last.”

“You have to let me help,” insisted Seunghyun, in a voice of such fury and longing that even in the midst of his freeze Jiyong felt a flicker of heat.

“No. He’s mine – I _earned_ him. But you can help me afterwards.” Seunghyun’s muscles were eminently suited to lugging a body around.

The older man subsided into vague incensed grumbles under his breath, while Jiyong sat back and considered how he would do this. The gun would be too loud in port; better his usual method: stalking, a targeted strike. Calculated, cool. Then he could see where the evening took him. He was pleasantly picturing his cane smashing against bone, then a knife, then perhaps even his hands at the last – they could be effective, whatever Seunghyun said – when the tableau began to warp. The component parts remained, Jiyong and Inoue and those hands and pain, but they were rearranging themselves into something he had no wish to picture again. Ahh, but he couldn’t help himself: the resentment was too piercing and he felt himself losing control. Unable to resist and still clinging to Seunghyun’s hand he was drawn into the past.

* * *

The fishing vessel, a wooden one-master with a low house built atop the deck, was narrow and smelly. Jiyong couldn’t figure out the pronunciation of the faded hanja on her side – his Japanese reading ability was negligible – but at the dock where he signed on he was told her name was Rina. The skipper gave him an unimpressed glance, even when Jiyong swore up and down in his best formal verbs that he could gut fish and cook. This was hardly a sterling qualification, and the Japanese officers gave all Korean sailors the same look in any case. Still, Jiyong was stung as he always was, taking it as a personal slight: he hated begging for a job from a bunch of interlopers, but if he wanted to make a start on his career – and he did, he _had_ to – he would have to repress that. Happily the ship seemed short-handed and he was given a grudging shrug.

“Age?” barked the large man who must be the mate, as Jiyong was directed down the line with a jerk of the captain’s thumb.

“Sixteen.” He looked younger, he knew; but one comment on his size or strength from this hulking bastard and Jiyong would be off – and damn the whole venture. The mate raised his eyebrows silently, appraising him from his head to his toes. Jiyong did his best to look hardbitten and grizzled.

“Experience?”

“My father fishes and hunts sea lions on Dokdo. Sir.” Not that Jiyong had learned much from him; it was the other fishermen who’d sometimes deigned to be his teachers. And _him_. Of course. The thought of Choi made his scar prickle the way it always did. Jiyong scowled and raised his eyes to meet the tall man’s gaze.

“And yet you’re here in Busan,” observed the mate, in the colloquial slur Jiyong still had trouble following. “Long way from home for a small fry.”

“I wanted something new.” He didn’t add that if he’d spent one more minute under a roof with his father – especially with no Choi around as a distraction – he might have literally killed the worthless bastard. The man smiled past his stubble, revealing straight tobacco-stained teeth. Jiyong thought it an odd expression, but then he never smiled anymore himself.

“Reckon you’ll get it, lad. We’ll take you: galley assistant and what-have-you.” The boy felt his heart give a small, suspicious caper – could he really have found a job at last? He’d been refused three ships already. “It’s dirty work,” the mate warned, eyes assessing Jiyong’s hands. “And hard: we’re fishin’ for tuna. You ready for that?”

“Yes, sir. I can take it.”

“I trust you will, boy.” The mate turned a dog-eared ledger towards him. “Name and address here – if you can write.” Jiyong could only write Japanese in hiragana, which he did laboriously; he hoped there would be some other Korean crew with him. “Kuwon…Ji-yon,” read his new superior. “Inoue Jiro: mate. All right, you can go aboard – see our cook for your duties. Jump to and do as you’re told and we’ll rub along well enough.” One more lingering glance at Jiyong’s small frame – he seemed doubtful. The younger man bristled. “Welcome to the Rina,” said Inoue, and waved him off. Jiyong bowed in a semblance of politeness, set foot on the gangplank, and for the first time cut ties with dry land as a working man.

It was a small crew: eight hands, two officers, and Jiyong. The cook, for whom he would nominally act as assistant, was a taciturn Japanese with gray hair and a limp. Jiyong could never remember his name but it didn’t seem to matter: he was ‘Cook’ to everyone. He spoke the bare minimum to the boy, merely pushing and grunting at him as they checked the week’s stores, and Jiyong found this to be the norm when he met the rest of the men. From a purely practical standpoint it was probably no bad thing, his Japanese ability was far from perfect; but to Jiyong it felt as if they were dismissing him entirely based on his youth and small stature, and in that he was probably correct.

“…Are you all from Busan?” he asked, having heard low voices speaking Korean and drawn near enough the three working men to feel a little less lost. He had perched listening to their conversation a while as they ran the nets through their hands, searching for breaks; they sounded a lot like the villagers back home. Two raised their heads as if surprised. The other nodded.

“More or less. How ‘bout you, kid?”

“Ulleungdo.” Jiyong knew he didn’t sound friendly; he didn’t think he ever had, not even when Choi spoiled him as a child, and now when he tried he couldn’t. Perhaps it was this that made the Korean sailors – of the lowest ranks with the dirtiest jobs aboard, by the look of them – stare at him in baffled silence. The one who’d asked him nodded his head in acknowledgement, and after that it was if Jiyong had turned invisible. He felt a small pang of hurt at that, the sense of being overlooked he had experienced from his father on his best days. Before a glimpse of it could show on his face he left them to their nets and went to stare out to sea, but a minute later the mate gave him a light cuff to the head and ordered him to stop daydreaming and go below; and so Jiyong readied himself for a dark and lonely voyage. It was still better than being at home.

Jiyong had chosen a fishing vessel for his first job rather than the more adventurous sealers and whalers because the sailing legs were short: tuna needed to be delivered fresh and so they’d be in port every few days, working their way up and down the coast. He knew he didn’t get seasick and he was willing to start at the bottom and work his way up through the drudgery of galley duty; but this way he could always jump ship if his new skipper was anything like his father – or if working for Korea’s enemies did turn out to be intolerable. His offhand treatment by the crew and the cramped conditions of the Rina hadn’t discouraged him yet, and once they’d finally put to sea his view of the land sinking through the gaps between the sails had filled him with an obscure hope. Still, he hadn’t quite made up his mind.

“That’s yours,” muttered the cook once the off-watch was abed, pointing out a narrow threadbare hammock slung with barely enough room to stretch out in a cubby off the galley. Jiyong wasn’t thrilled, but he regarded it neutrally enough; it wasn’t as though he had any possessions to speak of, just a knife – the one he hadn’t been able to throw away, no matter how he’d tried – a change of clothes and the most basic washing things. “Crack a damn smile,” he thought he heard the cook add in his strong accent. Oh. Was he supposed to be grateful? Perhaps this was considered luxury for whatever boy was acting as general dogsbody. His new boss spat and limped away, still muttering. Jiyong thought about going back on deck; he had never been to sea at night and he wanted to breathe the clean air – the galley stank. He didn’t feel at home enough yet, though: he should learn the system here first, the hierarchy, how the men interacted and the Japanese they used at sea; then he might see how to ingratiate his way upward.

He was drifting in his little hammock, worn out from the relief of finding a job and lulled by the rock of the waves. He hoped he wouldn’t dream tonight, that the sea might provide him the solace other humans had not. It might have worked, but not for long: he had just dropped into sleep when he heard his name being called. Jiyong swam groggily back into wakefulness and turned over in the hammock, blinking.

“Kuwon,” said the brisk, quiet voice again, a voice used to being obeyed. “Come along, I’ve got work for you. Now!” Jiyong recognized the mate’s tall silhouette in the galley and struggled to his feet. He wasn’t sure how much use he’d be at this hour, almost stupid with sleep; but he knew ‘galley assistant’ was code for ‘everyone’s slave’, and so he followed Inoue sternward through the low, claustrophobic corridor. They emerged in what must be the mate’s cabin; it was too small for the man to stand straight in, even Jiyong’s head brushed the ceiling, and it was only just long enough for a bunk. Still, it seemed like luxury compared to his own cubby.

“…What did you need me to do, sir?” he inquired in fumbled Japanese after a minute; Inoue had latched the door against the ship’s roll and was now just standing there watching him.

“Don’t have to ‘do’ anythin’,” said the mate casually, and in two short steps had reached Jiyong. “You just need to get used to it.” Jiyong frowned, feeling dim. He was jerked fully awake when a second later Inoue grabbed for him, one large hand gripping his shoulder; the other went for the strings of his loose fisherman’s trousers and being tugging at them. Their faces were close enough that he could make out the man’s smallpox scars in the lamplight, smell the tobacco on his breath. Jiyong stared up at him, mouth dropping open, but for a long stupid instant he couldn’t make sense of it. As he registered Inoue’s expression, however, he shrank back instinctively: it was nothing like Choi’s unflattering look of protective adoration, but something in there was akin to it, and Jiyong realized it was _lust_. As he moved the mate moved with him, pushing him up against the bunk and forcing him round so the fronts of his thighs were pressed to it, trapping him. The heavy hand left his shoulder and tangled in his hair, yanking his head back as Inoue continued pawing at his clothes.

“What are you _doing_?!” cried Jiyong in astonishment and without logic; he could feel something hard against his hip. Realizing he had spoken Korean he added wildly in Japanese, “I’m not a woman!!” The hand in his hair tightened. He heard Inoue mutter something unintelligible, then growl more clearly:

“Why waste my money on a whore in port when I have one right here?” It took some time for Jiyong’s petrified brain to translate that, but once it did he was so outraged that for a moment his fear and disbelief fell away and he was able to move again. Seizing his chance he twisted, ignoring the pain in his scalp, and attacked the bigger man with every part of his body he could bring to bear, teeth and fists and knees, trying to knock him back. There was no skill in it, none of the fighting moves Choi had tried to teach him, only desperation and absolute fury. “Fuck! You wildcat,” barked Inoue as Jiyong bit him in the forearm, and jerked back. Jiyong experienced a surge of triumph – it felt so good to hurt him! But that was quickly ended when the mate’s ironlike fist collided with his cheek, then his stomach, addling his senses and throwing him limp against the bunk again. Jiyong had been struck many times by his father, and hard – but it was _nothing_ compared to this, and when Inoue grabbed him again he could do no more than spit in his face. He was winded by the blow to his belly and felt too weak for anything further, even to throw up on the man.

“ _Don’t_!” was all he could hiss as Inoue caught him by the hair again, half a warning and half a plea.

“Why’d you think I gave you the okay?” Inoue demanded, rotating him as easily as if he were a doll and bending him forward across the bunk. His hand transferred itself to the back of Jiyong’s neck while the other resumed fumbling at his clothes. “Scrawny little thing like you, what _good_ are you?” Jiyong twisted beneath him violently, but it was futile with the man’s weight on his back; he began to sweat, his hair standing on end.

“ _Fuck you_ …!” he said into the blanket. It sounded feeble, and added to the fear and disgust he felt a hot wash of embarrassment.

“All you’ve got goin’ for you is one half of a pretty face – oh, and _this_.” Jiyong felt cold air on his legs, the sound of fabric being pulled away. Inoue didn’t seem angry now, just matter-of-fact, as if this was a routine occurrence. With unhurried, deliberate movements the older man took the boy’s left buttock in one hand, squeezing as if he was testing a cut of meat. Jiyong’s skin crawled at the contact but it soon vanished, as did the hand on the nape of his neck; he tried to move while he had the chance – and was appalled to find he couldn’t. He could only lie there and tremble, the mate’s shirt rough against his lower back, as a faint metallic noise like a jar lid opening sounded behind him. “Bite down on that sheet,” Inoue instructed, with a little more haste and more hoarsely. His callused hands, greasy with something thick and cold, pressed Jiyong’s thighs apart. Jiyong took a deep breath to cry out, gathered himself to make one last effort.

The rest was happily blank.

It could have been no more than a few minutes later when Jiyong found himself back in the dark galley with a mind completely empty and a limp worse than the cook’s. Mechanically he cleaned himself; it would be easier to tell himself nothing had happened that way. He touched his swollen cheek, a nice addition to the scar: it was dry. He hadn’t cried, then, though he had heard himself yelling. That was good. He climbed back into his hammock with difficulty; the pain was bone-deep, his face and his stomach and between his legs. He hadn’t known this kind of pain existed, but for the moment he was grateful for it: he sank into it as deep as he could, let it close around him. Teeth gritted, he managed to drop out of consciousness without thinking at all.

* * *

The pain was worse when he was called by the cook before dawn. Above them, through a thin inch of planking, Jiyong could hear footsteps and the slap of nets thrown overboard. He concentrated on the sounds, trying to picture what the sailors were doing as they prepared to catch the big fish; when he heard Inoue cursing one of the Korean hands he quickly drew his attention away, back to the thin soup and rice they were making. He was slapped upside the head once or twice for being slow to attend, while his hands trembled so much he could scarcely pour the broth and was scolded for it; but it was far preferable to engaging his mind.

The sailors came down in watches for their breakfast. He doled it out while they ignored him, and now he was thankful: he didn’t want anyone to look at him. He spent the morning scrubbing and swabbing and chopping burdock root, hard tasks for his small limbs; he threw himself into them ‘til the cook actually looked half pleased.

“They’re bringin’ in the first catch,” the old man said, jerking his head upward as rhythmic voices and the drag of wet nets filtered below deck. He handed Jiyong a long knife. “Now we gut ‘em and gill ‘em.” Jiyong watched his fingers close around the handle, and for a fraction of a second felt powerful. Then he was being pushed up the short ladder and emerged in sunlight. The deck was laden with huge fish. Jiyong had rarely seen an entire tuna and couldn’t imagine how you went about cleaning one. He felt his inexperience again, his naivety, and the previous night threatened to come back to him. Quickly he shook his head and commandeered one of the fish – only it wasn’t quite dead and there was a brief unpleasant scuffle ‘til the closest fisherman reached out with a thin metal spike and stabbed it in a precise spot on the head.

“Cut behind the gills,” instructed the man. Jiyong did so and waited for the tuna to bleed out. “Ike jime,” the Japanese sailor told him. “Tastes better if they die quick.” Jiyong nodded; he was carefully not thinking about anything in particular, and so he didn’t notice the impression that cool stab had made on him. It sat there in his hindbrain nevertheless, waiting to be remembered.

The cleaning process was gory and exhausting, as the fish was larger than him. Mess aside Jiyong almost enjoyed it, wrestling with the carcass and copying the man beside him; he thought it was because the work had helped him push everything else away for a few more hours. Later he would learn it was the violence in particular that had soothed him – unfortunately he did not learn that important lesson fast enough. He managed only the one tuna – the expert fishermen had done three – before it was finished and he was set to scrubbing the bloodstained deck clean while the butchered fish were hauled down into the hold and packed in chilled seawater. Watching the sailors, their sinewy arms and capable hands, he did indeed feel useless. Inoue’s words flashed into his head and he hurriedly pushed them out again, instead thinking bitterly of his father: if the bastard had taught _him_ everything and not Choi he wouldn’t seem like such a burden now!

He clung to this resentment until nightfall, whereupon bringing fish stew to the skipper and the mate knocked it all out of his mind. He passed the bowl to Inoue with a shaking hand, fighting himself physically in order to act as if everything was normal. To his deep confusion his attacker didn’t even glance at him; he merely continued listening to the captain, who was complaining about taxes.

“Bring some honju,” said the skipper. Inoue pushed his cup forward, and that was their sole interaction that evening. Jiyong began to wonder if perhaps nothing _had_ really happened, if it had just been his worst dream yet, and if perhaps the pain still radiating through him was from something else. He found himself wanting to accept that, and he almost managed it until the Rina was quiet and he was sent to his hammock: once there he began to shiver violently. Without thinking – he was growing good at that – he reached into his small bundle of belongings and grabbed Choi’s pocket knife. He crouched there, watching it shudder and shake in the faint light; vividly he remembered the sensation of cutting his face, and little by little his hands stilled.

When the shadow came for him this time he was ready – this would all remain a bad dream, it _had_ to! He would make it so. As Inoue snapped his name Jiyong rose from the floor like a striking predator, short blade aimed at the man’s belly: the mate wasn’t fat, it ought to find his guts. He saw Inoue’s arm rise, swerved to avoid it, and felt the knife score a line across one hairy wrist. What happened after that he couldn’t tell: at the same time as the knife hit the boards Jiyong’s skull hit the bulkhead. He blinked slowly, dazed. Inoue smacked him against it again, almost lazily, and Jiyong retched.

“Don’t be funny,” Inoue grunted as Jiyong scrabbled for a hold on the wall. Funny? thought Jiyong, his mind torpid and his ears ringing. _What_ was funny? The thought sounded so clearly in Korean that he might have mumbled it aloud; if he did Inoue ignored him as thoroughly as he ignored the fallen knife – as if there was nothing either object could possibly do to harm him. The mate caught him around the waist, tossed him easily over his shoulder, and stumped down the passage to his cabin. And then there was no way for Jiyong to pretend it hadn’t happened.

Jiyong knew that there was something in him that made him attractive to other men – Seunghyun had shown him that, the bastard. Since then he had felt it, the weight of admiring gazes upon him, from some of the villagers, local fishermen. Those stares were insults, but never had one of them tried anything more; he’d supposed they were rightly ashamed of themselves, or perhaps frightened of his father or Choi. But this man wasn’t: he didn’t care, blowing and growling in loud satisfaction while he used the stunned boy as he pleased. And, Jiyong realized in a fog of pure horror, neither did anyone else.

The first time had been too awful to think about, yes, and by shutting all his higher faculties down he had succeeded. Tonight he was left with no choice, when the cabin door creaked open and above the disgusting noises of sex he heard the captain’s voice.

“Jiro.” No outrage there, thought Jiyong feverishly, blood from his forehead trickling into his left eye and his limbs useless as he sought purchase on the bedcovers. “If you’re going to do that, keep him quiet – it bothers the men.” His brief relief that Inoue had quit moving was lost in the even more painful mortification of being seen – seen and dismissed. Worse, that they all _knew_. He hadn’t thought humiliation could be this crushing, Choi’s confession was _nothing_ in comparison. He’d been shedding tears already despite himself, not from weakness but a physical side effect of the blows to his head; now he had to clap a hand across his mouth to stifle a sob. “That’s better,” said the skipper, and withdrew.

“Good,” he heard Inoue grunt, as if nothing had happened, as if this wasn’t grounds for his captain to fling him overboard. “Stay just like that. That’s nice.” Jiyong whined through his teeth as the mate resumed, then shut his lips together tight – he didn’t want to know what the man might do if he cried out now. He repressed every sound until it was over.

Inoue pushed him out afterwards; it was the one solitary thing Jiyong had to be grateful for – that the beast didn’t want to share his bunk. He curled up in his narrow hammock, burning every place the mate had touched him, and tried to think of nothing. The first time the pain had been a godsend: he’d focused on it, fallen into it, pushing away all the terrible images that wanted ingress, all the phantom voices accusing him of being weak. It was tremendous again tonight – Inoue had seemed to enjoy his desperate silence, or had enjoyed trying to break it – but it wasn’t enough. Jiyong could still hear the captain’s laconic voice, feel his eyes, remember his words: the hands were ‘bothered’. That meant they knew – but what else did it mean?

* * *

The next morning Jiyong was roused from his bed again – he hadn’t slept – while it was still dark, helped make breakfast, cleaned, then ladled out the food to the men after they’d cast the first nets. As he did so he peered at them, deliberately sought their gaze; he hadn’t been able to look them in the eye since the first time, he was so ashamed, but now he had to know: what did ‘bothered’ mean? As he lugged the canteens of soup around the long bench his heart sank, because he thought he knew. They weren’t troubled by what Inoue was doing! Not enough to help him, anyway. The best emotion he read was embarrassment, the most common irritation and envy – that the mate was getting something they had to do without ‘til port. The worst was anger, disgust: at Jiyong. Oddly enough Jiyong found those looks the easiest to accept, because now he was unable to block everything out it was how he felt about himself. If he was stronger this would never have happened! If he was Choi…

He reached the lowest ranks of the table, the three Koreans who occupied the most menial positions aboard. He didn’t know why he’d expected them to be any different, but he’d been hoping for a little patriotic outrage at least. Their expressions, those he could read, were exactly the same as the others; two of them wouldn’t even meet his eyes. Jiyong swallowed hard and returned to the galley as quickly as he could, trying to hide his flinches at each pained step. The cook pointed silently to a pile of dirty cooking utensils, and Jiyong humped them up to clean on deck.

It was a gray morning, the sun rising behind low clouds, and the wind was sharp and cleansing. Jiyong breathed it in; the lone helmsman ignored him. The waves moved quietly beneath the Rina’s keel, and as he crouched watching them Jiyong found a kind of temporary peace. He couldn’t avoid what was happening to him until they reached shore again, and he couldn’t help thinking about it; fine. But he could face facts, and maybe that would make it easier. He had been hurt and humiliated to the highest degree; it couldn’t get worse. No man aboard would help him – and why would they? He wasn’t a woman, no-one was obliged to protect him. They just thought he was unmanly. Jiyong hated that down to his very core, but right now he couldn’t disagree with them. So, unless he made himself stronger in the next twelve hours, this was what would happen. And as far as he could see, the only strong thing he _could_ do in this moment was to make it look as if he didn’t care.

It happened again that night. Jiyong knew Inoue would be ready for the knife, so this time he left his hammock and stumbled around as best he could in the dark, looking for a hiding place. His attacker found him wedged behind one of the tuna tanks and had him right there, large hand clapped across his mouth so he couldn’t cry out. Frantically trying to breathe through his nose Jiyong inhaled the pungent scent of fish and salt, and thought he would never be able to smell them again without vomiting. Inoue left him there to clean himself, bruises blooming across his hips and stomach from the hard edges of the tank. Jiyong knelt there until he had the strength to stand, and told himself to be happy: they were heading into port tomorrow, not Busan but a town a little way up the coast with a large fish market. The captain and the mate would of course have their hands full with the ship and the sale of the tuna – the moment Inoue turned his back Jiyong would be away! He didn’t care about his pay, didn’t care about anything but getting someplace where no-one would ever, _ever_ know his shame.

The next morning he was kept busy helping the cook make a list of stores that needed replenishing. The old man unbent enough to tell Jiyong he might take him to the market to help carry them. Jiyong decided that was perfect; he waited just long enough for the town with its wooden wharves and stone pier to come into view – he didn’t know its name and he didn’t care – then darted below and threw his second pair of clothes on over his first, tucking his other possessions into his shirt and the knife in his pocket. He was ready, and limping though he was the cook was worse: he would never catch him. Jiyong watched as the enormous fish were hauled onto the docks with a wooden crane. Inoue was on land directing the men who would wheel them to market while the captain haggled with the merchants – now was the time to go! But the god-damn cook was dragging his lame old heels and Jiyong didn’t dare debark before the sailors got their shore leave: they were free until the Rina cast off again in the afternoon. He had no doubt they’d spend the time drinking and whoring; but the mere idea of fucking made him cringe now, so he allowed his impatience to push that image aside.

“Come on, then!” the cook snapped at last, appearing through the hatchway with several empty sacks and hobbling to the gangplank. He handed the bags to Jiyong and made his way down; the boy followed, on tiptoe with apprehension and eagerness, staring about like a hare emerging from its hole: he could see no sign of Inoue.

“Boss, I gotta piss,” he almost gasped to the cook, who simply flapped a hand in the direction of a broad path that led away from the docks.

“Hurry up and catch me, then. Market’s thataway.” He limped off, leaving Jiyong alone amid the bustle on the shore.

For a length of time that seemed absurd Jiyong could hardly believe it, that he was free – that this nightmarish parenthesis of his life was finally _over_. His breath was coming unsteadily, his limbs wobbly from their time at sea and his sheer nerves. But he couldn’t stand here all day, he had to _go_ ; he let the empty sacks slip from his hand and forced his feet to move, heading for the road that led away from the market. As he gained distance from the water he found himself able to pick up speed, forgetting his limp, and by the time he left the dock he was running. Ahead of him were poor straw houses and a sense of quiet: this wasn’t where the townsfolk congregated, he thought with relief, nobody would look for him here, if they bothered at all. He flew around a bend in the road feeling lighter than he had in years, if only for this moment. Then he felt his body skidding to a halt, the lightness leaving him instantly; he was still trying to process why, what it had noticed that his conscious mind hadn’t, when he felt his ear explode with pain. The street vanished.

When Jiyong returned to himself he knew he was someplace familiar; he couldn’t seem to focus his eyes and his head was ringing like a bell. It was only when his other senses picked up the slack and he felt the scratch of a familiar blanket against his scar, smelled the tobacco and fish, that he knew he was back. Someone was pulling at his leg, and when he tried to raise his hands to make them stop he found he couldn’t.

“Oh, you’re back,” grunted Inoue, and Jiyong bit his lip to stifle a pathetic sound of despair. “Figured you’d try somethin’; I was waitin’ to see if you would.” Jiyong tried moving again and understood that his hands were tied behind his back; when he shifted his left leg he heard the rattle of metal. “You dumb brat,” said the mate, and Jiyong caught the snick of a lock: the man had shackled him to the bunk. “You run away, you won’t get your pay.”

“…My _pay_!” ground out Jiyong, astonished; why in the hell would Inoue think he cared about that?! “Fuck that, let me _go_ , you-!”

“You gonna be quiet? I’ve got work to do.” Jiyong bared his teeth at him: he would yell ‘til the Rina’s timbers shivered! It was his last hope, that someone on the shore might hear him. But when Inoue started towards him with a clenched fist Jiyong was disgusted to find his body shrinking back. The mate spat in apparent disdain, then pulled a rag from his pocket, shook Jiyong by the hair until his teeth rattled, and stuffed the balled-up fabric into his mouth. “Your choice,” he said with a shrug before turning and strolling out, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Jiyong wore himself out twisting and turning, trying to bring his hands to bear on the leg iron Inoue had locked him in. Why did they have it on board? Just for this? How many times had this happened before? Jiyong was flexible, but having reached the lock there was nothing he could do about it. So he lay there on the bunk and cried some ignominious tears at his own stupidity: he should have been more careful when he ran, should have hidden in another boat, avoided the town entirely. Too late now: his own fault. Several hours later Inoue came back smelling of drink and fucked him, rough and quick as always, then went to assist with the unmooring of the ship; they were off. Jiyong had missed his chance.

* * *

The pattern was the same after that, weeks and weeks of work and abuse that was only matched in its horror by its monotony. During the day Jiyong worked hard, grew slightly more competent at cooking and at cutting the tuna; he didn’t have time to learn anything more useful, and in any case he was too tired, a bone-deep exhaustion that his body was not yet tough enough to handle. He didn’t think he had truly slept since his last night on dry land; when he did he had nightmares, or dreams about Choi that were even worse, and they were always interrupted: Inoue called for him nightly, more often than not dragging him bodily from his hammock when his limbs refused to obey him. Sometimes Jiyong could drop into the pain and go back to sleep after – Inoue was always quick – but more often he was kept awake by his own recriminations.

He never had another chance to escape: Inoue, seeing no entertainment in chasing Jiyong across unfamiliar towns during his leisure hours, took the practical approach and brought the boy to his cabin before the Rina docked each time. He would be bound and gagged and left there to wait. Jiyong tried resisting the second time, hiding a long fish-gutting knife precariously under his shirt – the pocket knife was no good, that had been proven already – in anticipation of the mate’s arrival. He cut Inoue again, this time in the thigh, but immediately afterwards the knife had been ripped from his hand and the bigger man was threatening to geld him with it. Jiyong didn’t try to fight anymore, and though some of the hands must have heard the scuffle and known what was going on none of them said a word. He thought the only one who might have was the cook, who had taken to eyeing Inoue in a disgruntled manner; Jiyong couldn’t tell if the old man was judging his superior or if he was just irritated there was no-one to help him cart stores back to the ship. The cook never asked him if he was all right, so he presumed the latter.

Inoue was always half-drunk when he returned from shore; all the sailors were, it was a miracle they made it out of harbor without hitting something. Jiyong knew they sometimes had women aboard in the couple of hours before they cast off. He wondered if some of them actually had sweethearts in port – he couldn’t imagine it, none of the men were much more than animals – or if they were all prostitutes. As he listened to them humping in the forepeak or the hold, the encouraging giggles and businesslike slap of flesh on flesh, he found he no longer had any judgmental feelings towards such women: at least they were getting paid. Perhaps that was why Inoue, to Jiyong’s bitter regret, didn’t take a leaf out of his crewmates’ books and hire a professional: he was a skinflint as well as a pig. Instead he’d return to the Rina, fumble his trousers open as he rolled in the door, and have Jiyong right there, shackled and gagged as if laid out waiting for him. Once or twice he brought another man with him, some drunken acquaintance or other who was willing to pay Inoue for a round with a boy whore. After the first shock it was all the same to Jiyong: face pressed into the blanket he couldn’t tell the difference between them – rapists were rapists. He just lay still and used his old trick of focusing on the hurt until he was untied and sent back to work.

“Me first,” he heard an unfamiliar voice slur one afternoon. “I’m paying, aren’t I? Guess you get yours all day long!” Some argument followed this but Jiyong let it flow past him and continued counting the loose threads in the blanket; his arms had gone to sleep, but if he clenched his fists it sent a wave of helpful pain up to his shoulders. “You haven’t?” the first voice said a minute later. “Seems a waste.” A hand grabbed the rope at his wrists and Jiyong whimpered despite himself as his face was pulled off the bunk.

“You’d think,” he heard Inoue reply casually, “but this little snake’s already tried stabbin’ me twice – and that mouth’s full of teeth.”

“C’mon.” Jiyong winced as he was dragged from the bunk, his bare knees hitting the planks – Inoue had taken to stripping him and locking up his clothes, as if to make it that bit harder for him to escape if he wriggled free. He glared up to see the mate looking down at him consideringly; he couldn’t see the owner of the other voice, but there was breath on the back of his neck and a hand eagerly kneading his buttocks. After the first flinch Jiyong ignored it: he was so used to the disgust of being touched that he could blank it quite efficiently. And Inoue’s expression was more worrying.

“Okay, let’s try this." Inoue took him by the hair with one hand – his favorite hold – and with the other loosened his trousers. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anythin’.” As if that was Jiyong’s one objection. “Just open your mouth.” At that Jiyong snarled at him, unable to restrain himself: appalling as the man’s assaults had been he had never done _that_ before. Inoue was only half hard now, obviously preferring his arse: easy, convenient, no danger. Wise. Jiyong snapped his teeth in the mate’s direction, tears spilling over his cheeks as Inoue shook him by the hair.

“See what you mean,” said the son of a bitch behind him, the one who had put this sick idea in Inoue’s head. “This little kitten has fangs.” That made Jiyong shudder, the twisted _compliment_. Inoue never said things like that, didn’t talk at all or seem to want to see Jiyong’s face as he screwed him: Jiyong might as well be a hole in the wall. This revolting praise was worse, worse than the stranger’s fingers now fumbling inside him. And Inoue was eyeing Jiyong with an expression he recognized very well, having felt it – or the lack of it – his entire life: masculine pride. He wouldn’t show this other drunken fool that he was afraid of a galley assistant – he would do this unnatural thing merely to make a point! Inoue stepped forward just as Jiyong felt the other man push inside him; he groaned through his teeth, trying desperately to keep them clamped shut.

“Bite me and I’ll knock your teeth out.” Jiyong saw the mate’s raised hand and cringed back, stopped by the fist in his hair. One last humiliation, he thought in horror, because here for the first time he understood he could be _afraid_ of pain, and had been ever since Inoue knocked him out – that he’d rather open his mouth than be struck in it! Inoue took advantage of his shocked pause, and that was that: there was no part of him left unviolated. Someday he would find out that wasn’t true, that there was worse to come; but just then his fall from dignity seemed complete.

* * *

It went on that way another two months, until the autumn winds chilled the East Sea and Jiyong began to shiver when he was stripped for an entirely different reason. He had found his earlier reactions dwindling, the urge to fight back dulling, and he was glad of it – his self-protective instincts, he supposed. He couldn’t get away and so the practical parts of his brain made the best of it, abstracting his mind from the loathsome physical sensations. They went from port to port and he saw nothing of them, only the distant coast and that same brown blanket when he was left tied in Inoue’s cabin.

Jiyong in fact preferred it when he was restrained; at least then he had some excuse for not resisting. When he simply lay there out of apathy or got on his knees for fear of Inoue’s fists he could only explain it by his mortifying lack of strength. He tried not to dwell on that, used every trick he could to avoid the thought and to keep his self-loathing from swallowing him. He behaved himself and so the physical violence grew less – he ought to welcome it, it helped him when he could fall inside the pain; but the cowardly part of him was so afraid he found it impossible to court Inoue’s blows. That meant his mind spent a lot of time scrabbling for other things to focus on, before, during, and after the assaults; and few of them were pleasant.

For the first time Jiyong found himself wondering the unthinkable: if he’d been wrong to reject Seunghyun’s – _Choi’s_ – offer of love and protection. He was certain he wouldn’t be enduring this now if he’d accepted; he could not imagine a universe in which the older boy would allow another man to touch him. Then again, Jiyong consoled himself as he shifted position in his hammock to ease the raw ache, it would have been the same humiliation sooner or later. Choi had rarely troubled to restrain whatever emotions he was feeling: he always acted on them, lashed out even as Jiyong distanced himself from his own. The bastard had proved it on their final night with that confession, that embrace; and if Jiyong had not driven him away it would surely have ended up like this. Choi was a _man_ ; everyone acknowledged that, even when they were disparaging him. He wanted Jiyong, and he wouldn’t have controlled himself. It would have been worse, even, since Jiyong had built up Choi as his bitterest rival. No, he thought deliberately, fingers creeping up to touch his scar and remind himself of why he’d done what he had done: it had been the right choice.

* * *

Somewhere along the line Jiyong had accepted the idea that he would have to endure this until the end of the tuna season in January. At first he had made that far-off day a precious goal: he’d kept his mind fixed on it and it had helped. As the weeks passed and it seemed to draw no closer, however, it began to lose its luster. He couldn’t even picture his coming freedom anymore – it made the present too bitter. Besides, what would that freedom be like now, with the knowledge of his weakness hanging over his head? The only thing he might possibly gain from all this was his small wages.

So it was with a feeling of lethargy that he turned his head one port day at the sound of the cabin door, and saw not Inoue but the captain. He had a brief echo of the panic and hurt he had experienced the last time this man had walked in – this man who was supposed to look out for him – but it quickly vanished and he simply regarded him: he had already felt all the shame he could. The skipper looked angry, a lowering brow and pursed lips Jiyong hadn’t noticed on him before; in fact he had never seen him show anything other than disinterest.

“You _are_ here.” The man reached him in two strides; Jiyong flinched half-heartedly, then stared as he took a crude key from his sleeve and snapped the lock on the boy’s ankle open, moving briskly to untie his wrists. Jiyong didn’t move even once he was released: he was too suspicious. Instead he hunched into a corner of the bunk and rubbed at his arms, trying to revive the circulation. The captain leaned forward, and with a change in expression that seemed to signal mild distaste he hooked the gag out of Jiyong’s mouth. “Here,” he said gruffly, holding out a thin paper packet. Jiyong blinked. “Collect your things and go; find another ship and leave town.”

“…Go?” echoed Jiyong, not understanding. The skipper flapped the packet at him; he took it in his tingling fingers and opened it to find a small amount of money.

“Don’t need you anymore; I’ve already found a man to replace you.” Jiyong’s eyebrows twisted as he tried to make sense of this. There were still four months of the season to go, and the captain had only ever looked the other way before. What was _happening_? The older man, perhaps sensing his naked employee had no intention of moving while he stood over him, stepped back. Still trying to puzzle this out and not yet daring to hope, Jiyong slid off the bunk onto unsteady legs, trembling for the first time in a long while. The skipper opened the door and shepherded him down the empty passage to his sad little cubby. “Get dressed.” Jiyong awkwardly dragged on his spare set of clothes, his hands shaking so badly he could scarcely tie them.

“Sir…I…is this _real_?” he asked, unable to help himself; he sounded breathy and vulnerable and even now he hated it. The captain scowled.

“My fucking cousin was just arrested for raping a townswoman.” Jiyong stared dumbly at him before it hit him that he must be related to Inoue – who else? _That_ was why he’d never put a stop to this! “If the local police get a sniff of _you_ it’ll go worse for him. So I want you out.” The man leaned towards him. “And if you open your mouth you’ll spend your life regretting it. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!” cried Jiyong immediately. That was an easy promise: he never wanted a single human to know about this, not _ever_. Quickly he filled his pockets with his meager possessions under the skipper’s dubious eye; was he reconsidering his decision? Would it be safer to keep Jiyong aboard after all, hidden away somewhere so he couldn’t give his damning testimony? Jiyong was about to open his mouth again and assure him he would _never_ tell when another figure attempted to squeeze his way into the cubby. He buttoned his lip immediately at the sight of a stranger. The captain gave him one more warning glare before stepping back into the galley and addressing the newcomer.

“Hurry up, man, and report to the cook. Kuwon, come out of there.” Jiyong did so, edging around the hammock and the short, skinny man who had just dumped a sack in it; he was perhaps twenty-seven, and smelled of fish and kitchen oil. Perhaps Jiyong did too. The man gave the boy’s latest black eye a worried glance, probably gauging the probability of getting a matching one. “This is your replacement,” the captain informed Jiyong brusquely. “Got thrown off his last ship for food poisoning so I’ve demoted him to assistant. Isn’t that right, Cooky?” The man’s rat-like features narrowed in displeasure, but he ducked his head and mumbled obligingly in Korean. Jiyong thought about saying something to him, warning him, but the skipper was already dragging him away. Besides, Jiyong told himself as he left the galley for what he prayed was the final time, the new assistant looked plenty shifty: in the unlikely event Inoue was released and decided he was appealing, he could probably take care of himself. For a second he wished with all his heart that _he_ was ugly, that he had done something more dramatic to himself than just one scar; he envied this Cooky extremely.

A minute later the captain was pushing him to the side and off the ship. Jiyong took an ungainly leap down to the dock, and then he really did fall, his legs like string: he hadn’t set foot on land for months and the unmoving boards beneath him had shot his balance. But here he was, on Korean soil – free at last. He couldn’t reconcile himself to it, it was so unlikely; perhaps this was another dream, perhaps something more terrible than usual was being done to him and he’d retreated into this realistic fantasy.

“You all right, kid?” asked a passing fisherman from the next boat, skirting around him with a stack of crates balanced on his head. _Very_ realistic. After a while Jiyong decided that if this was a dream he might as well try getting up. He did so, legs wobbling, and stood there feeling lost, his only belongings in his pockets. The longer he looked around the more he thought he was probably awake: the dock smelled too bad for it to be his imagination. So it _was_ true: he would really, truly never see Inoue again – provided he got out of here.

He essayed a few small steps, torn between the town and the long line of fishing vessels that stretched up the shore. He had it now, freedom, and what was more he had money! The only thing that remained was to get as far away from the monster as possible. The ships and boats were bustling, he could probably pay his way along the coast even if he couldn’t get hired here. Still, there was some part of him screaming that he should never set foot on another vessel, that he should turn inland and try to make something of himself in another line instead – someplace where no-one would ever, ever know his story.

He went down to the beach and sat on a discarded barrel, staring blindly out to sea. He loved it – he always had. And it had done something unforgivable to him. Could he ever sail it again? He hoped so, if only to spite Choi – wherever he was – and the people back home who had told him he couldn’t. They’d been proven right, though, hadn’t they: he wasn’t strong enough. Perhaps he could try again, part of him thought, the part of him mesmerized by the light dancing on the water; but never again would he step aboard a Japanese ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I get this title from a Justin Timberlake song? Yes, Other Barry, yes I did...
> 
> I want to say next chapter will be more cheerful, but I'll just say Jiyong has a bad time in a _slightly_ different way, which adds a new note to his personal screwed-up psychology. Also it'll be a very long chapter :)
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jiyong has a slightly better and simultaneously much worse time - until it comes to an abrupt and unexpected end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to reiterate that Jiyong's troubled view of himself and the things that happen to him do _not_ reflect my own views. They're a product of his culture, time period, and his own personal neuroses, and are therefore very unhealthy and he needs a bucketload of therapy (which he will only get in the most unorthodox of ways!).
> 
> That said...on with the chapter!

Three days after Jiyong left his first berth he found employment on another – and to his eternal relief it was no hell-ship. It wasn’t really a ship at all, rather a large boat that went out daily to fish the inshore waters. He had paid a small fee to catch a ride to the next port town, and once there he felt safe enough from Inoue, at least in physical terms, to try again. Not that he had much choice: he needed to earn a living and couldn’t take the time to reflect on what had happened even had he wanted to, which he emphatically did not. He would just be more careful this time.

The skipper of the Haema – Pak Manseok – was usually accompanied by his brother and three nephews, but one had broken his wrist in a fight and couldn’t work for two months. Jiyong had watched them when their boat came in, had trailed after them and listened to the old man complain about being short-handed. Nothing in their faces seemed evil, though he knew enough by now to know that didn’t mean much; the boat was too small for any private abuse, and they returned to shore every morning so he wouldn’t have to sleep aboard. He decided to try it: a small step towards regaining his footing.

He persuaded them, stretching every faculty he had in order to appear normal and pleasant; he couldn’t manage a smile but they took him on anyway. It wasn’t a particularly happy two months. He couldn’t sleep any better on land than he had at sea, not even in the Paks’ warm straw-lined shed with a pair of goats as his companions – they were a thousand times better than his last – and though far from the house he would sometimes wake the family with his screaming. Instead he sat up, whittling birds and boats with Choi’s knife. Still, all things considered it was the best he could hope for. He learned the fine points of fishing for a number of species, a little of how to manage the boat, and most importantly the skills of trading in the market. The Pak family tolerated him and he had some harmless chatter with the nephews – they thought he was quiet and boring and he did not object at all to their disinterest; and if he tended to be nervy when the Japanese ships came in they didn’t mention it. He was certain by the time the job was finished that he had been a fool for signing on to a foreign ship. That was where he had gone wrong: you couldn’t trust them, not with how they looked down on his countrymen. He was safe working for Koreans; let that be his rule of thumb.

His next ship seemed to bear this out, and for a while he worked without harassment on short-leg tuna runs for a merchant in Pohang. The particular smell of the fish and the sense-memory of sawing them open gave him a few nasty moments in which he had to hastily divert his thoughts to safer waters; and the Korean sailors ribbed him for being puny as much as the villagers on Ulleungdo had. All the same, Jiyong largely spent his time unharassed; if anybody looked at him in that particular way he didn’t notice it. He would still freeze when men approached him without warning or accidentally came too close, but he was slowly becoming able to push it aside. Thus he learned a lot, picking up sailing techniques through observation – so easy in Korean – and memorizing where the likely fishing grounds could be found. He began to learn to trust again; at least, he skirted the edges of it, and for him that was a huge step. When he left that ship he was seventeen years old and he _almost_ felt like a man. He decided it was time he moved up the industry ladder.

* * *

His skipper on the tuna ship had written him an actual letter when he was paid off. Jiyong took a peek at it: it said he was a good worker and a fast learner, and you couldn’t say fairer than that. He was still too small to be of use in the more physical duties, like humping the tuna into the hold, but the captain was decent enough not to mention it. Armed with this statement of conduct Jiyong set his sights on a trip he’d been contemplating for some time: a season on a sealing ship. He had seen them in Busan unloading the soft skins in the autumn, and for some reason he felt drawn to it. Perhaps it was the months of open water, the chill of the Bering Sea. Perhaps it was the fortune they said you could make. Perhaps – and this was a very remote perhaps – it was because he had heard a rumor from a sailor who’d worked the Dokdo sea lion patch with his father: a rumor that _Choi_ had been seen aboard a sealing vessel! Jiyong thought the bastard had vanished off the face of the earth, and was goaded by the idea of him enjoying adventures on the high seas while the boy he had said he loved was being buggered on a fishy blanket. He bet Choi was having fun – he was good at that.

It was with this image pricking at the back of his mind that he joined the long line of seamen trying for a job on the reputedly lucky ship ‘Nancho’ – the Orchid. Jiyong thought it a bit of a feminine name for the hulking steamer; if he was hired it would be the largest ship he’d ever sailed on. The prospect seemed remote, unfortunately: listening to his fellow hopefuls in the line Jiyong gathered that the crew of the Nancho rarely moved on but stayed with their Korean captain season after season. He was wildly lucky at sealing but was not a hard horse, they said – a man might even enjoy his work there. Officially they were filling only two positions today, a hunter and a ship’s boy. Jiyong thought himself eminently qualified for the latter; hadn’t he done his work aboard the Rina under utterly impossible circumstances? He shivered, and pulled his coat tighter around himself against the wind.

“Name?” said a man who must be a mate, once Jiyong reached the head of the line.

“Kwon Jiyong.”

“Age?”

“…Eighteen.” Sealing was a hard job; he didn’t want to put himself out of the running before he began. The officer gave him a skeptical look but didn’t comment.

“Experience?” Jiyong reeled off his list of accomplishments – slightly less pathetic than when he had made the mistake of aiming for the Rina – and tried to emphasize the grueling physical work he’d done with the large tuna. The mate was tapping his pencil and fiddling with his beard: not impressed, then. Jiyong glanced at the line of men behind him and those in front; a well-built youngster was talking eagerly at a tall-hatted figure who must certainly be Captain Lee Hasun; he seemed receptive, even smiling. That was unsurprising, the strapping lad looked like an exemplary ship’s boy. Jiyong narrowed his eyes.

“I have a letter,” he said, turning back to the mate before he could dismiss him. He handed it over. The man held it away from him – poor eyesight – and scanned it, then shrugged and tossed it onto the table in front of the captain. The perfect ship’s boy left and Jiyong was shuffled into his place.

“Your last skipper gives you a good character,” was the first thing Lee said after setting down the letter. “And you have a good strong name.” Jiyong peered down at him, uncertain, unused to so many smiles. As with every man he met he was looking for that thing behind the eyes, that glint he hadn’t recognized in Inoue’s until it was too late; but the captain looked universally friendly.

“Thank you, sir.” He was too nervous to smile himself.

“What makes you so eager to take up seal hunting?”

“I want to be on the open sea,” said Jiyong quickly; and then, because there was something about this man that invited confidences: “…And there’s someone I know already at it. I want to best him!” Lee looked surprised, perhaps even a little perturbed behind his cheerful expression. Jiyong supposed his own expression when he spoke of Choi was not a charming one; just as well. The less these officers thought of him as pretty, the better it was. Lee jotted down some notes, then waved Jiyong away, smile resurrected.

“All right, go and get some breakfast. I’ll announce the hires when we’re through with this lot.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Jiyong, wishing that just for once he sounded a little warmer, and went to join the other candidates clustered around a grilled eel stall. They drank tea and gave each other calculating glances until the line had wound its way to the end and the bearded mate was striding over, loose trousers flapping.

“Han Taesu. Lee Jungjin.” The model ship’s boy and a hard-bitten older man stepped forward. The mate paused and checked a scrap of paper. “Kwon Jiyong.” For a long second Jiyong stood there with his tea halfway to his mouth, he was that astonished. He quickly shook himself into action and trotted towards the mate, still clutching his cup absently. Of course he was delighted – what were the odds?! – but at the same time vaguely uneasy that he had been chosen out of this crowd of older, stronger prospects. The mate began giving them instructions about signing the ledger and going aboard, what day the Nancho was due to set sail and what kit they should bring with them. Jiyong listened with half an ear, looking up into the man’s face with caution; but he could see no untoward interest there either, no covert glances or attempts to move closer. Of course, this was a Korean ship, and a happy one: he would be safe here.

* * *

Three days later the Nancho left Busan for the East Sea, thence to sail beneath Hokkaido and into the North Pacific; they would not set foot on land again for four months. Jiyong had spent the intervening time using the last of his tuna wages for cold-weather gear and a notebook: he was determined to get as much knowledge out of this voyage as could be, and perhaps next season he would be promoted from ship’s boy. Well might he wish it, thought Jiyong, as he and Han Taesu unpacked their things and slung their hammocks in an area not much bigger than his cubby aboard the Rina.

“Cosy, ain’t it,” said Taesu with a grin as Jiyong’s elbow hit him in the ear. “Worth it for the haul we’ll get, though.”

The young man had worked on sealers for two seasons, which might have qualified him as an expert if he didn’t seem so thoroughly unambitious. Jiyong had run into him several times before they set sail; both of them had put some time into learning the layout of the ship – it was a gray and clanging structure, not at all beautiful but a picture of efficient modernity – and recognizing her people, though presumably for quite different reasons. Taesu was gregarious and cheerful – the only points Jiyong could find to dislike about him – while the younger boy was on the lookout for any signs of danger, of men he would have to take care with. He hadn’t found any, just a crew that knew one another well and were content with their routine.

“You think we’ll make a lot of money?” Jiyong asked quietly. It had always been a motive for him, of course it had: every man wanted to be wealthy! But now he also had the hope that, if Choi was indeed working on some sealer too, Jiyong might become more successful than him. That was easiest measured in status and money: Choi could keep his muscles and his high-flying thoughts – if Jiyong could end up a rich captain it would show everyone who the better man was!

“Bound to. Skipper Lee’s lucky and he has good hunters – we’re gonna be swimming in gold!” Taesu was clearly an optimist, a trait Jiyong found highly irritating, but he meant no harm. Jiyong was struggling to think of a civil reply when the cook – again, known simply as ‘Cook’ – bawled at them to make themselves useful: they were getting underway. As they hurried out of their cubby he felt the floor beneath his feet begin to vibrate, and stood stock still in amazement. A rhythmic sound so vast and low it was almost inaudible thrummed through his body. Taesu looked back at him, laughed. “You were never on a steamship before? You’ll get used to it.” Jiyong did not like to be laughed at, but the boy was so good-natured. He nodded stiffly. “We’ll go take a gander at the engines when we’re done with work,” Taesu promised as the cook yelled again and they took off for the galley.

Jiyong kept quiet thereafter, accustoming himself to the movement of the great iron beast around him. _This_ was power, he decided with satisfaction – and one day he would have the authority to command that power himself. All he had to do was listen and learn.

“Well, here it is,” said the engineer, and opened the steel door to the boiler room. Jiyong was almost thrown back by the hot, wet air and the _noise_ , the grinding of metal and hiss of hydraulics, which sounded thoroughly alien to his upbringing under sail but which he identified after Taesu took his wrist and dragged him inside. He stared wide-eyed at the towering machines as the engineer yelled at them about triple-expansion engines and boilers and screws. Blinking the sweat from his eyes he moved carefully along the walkway, peering down at the great pistons working, the gears and vibrating tanks and the banked glow of fire as shirtless men shoveled coal into the boiler furnace. “You’ll all take a turn at that,” the engineer informed them. Taesu nodded easily, as well he might: Jiyong had seen his muscles. “Well. Most of you,” the older man added, and threw Jiyong a look that seemed more curious than directly offensive but which angered him anyway.

“I can do it too!” he announced. He wanted to know everything about these machines; here more than ever he felt that sense of raw power – to be master of all this would be something!

“We’ll wait an’ see what the skipper says.” Jiyong nodded thoughtfully.

That night the two ship’s boys served supper in shifts, and Jiyong came to see more clearly the social makeup of the sealing world. There were the ordinary sailors, who didn’t have a huge amount to do right now except work the ship and shovel but who would act as steerers and boat-pullers when the Nancho reached the Bering Sea. Above them came the hunters, a new class to Jiyong; there were six of them, one for each boat, and they were clearly aware of their position in the hierarchy: they would stand lookout and help out a bit but you wouldn’t find them shoveling in the boiler room. They ate at their own table and slept in their own berth, and though they seemed civil enough they didn’t much notice the two boys feeding them. In the past Jiyong would have felt slighted at that. Now he was grateful: to be unnoticed meant to be safe. On the same level but keeping themselves to themselves was a small group of technical people: the engineer and the bosun, both consorting with and patronizing the cook. At the top of the pile were the two mates, then Captain Lee. He came down when the watch changed and joined the hunters lingering at their table.

“How’re you new lads getting on?” he asked as Jiyong filled his bowl with rice. Jiyong was so surprised at being spoken to at all that he almost dropped his ladle. And Lee actually sounded interested!

“All right, sir,” he replied quietly, darting a look at his employer. Lee was smiling, as usual; it made dimples in his wide face. He was taller than Jiyong, of course, but not a giant, and was broad all over – not fat, rather comfortable, which combined with his expression to exude an air of contentment Jiyong had never encountered in a skipper before. Then again, this skipper was said to be rich, which made him different to pretty much every other man Jiyong had met.

“You like the Nancho?”

“I like the engines, sir.” Lee beamed as Jiyong handed him his stew.

“Someday all the Korean sealers will be under steam! That’ll show them we’re a modern nation at last.” Jiyong nodded; this man was enough to make one feel a little patriotic. Perhaps Jaesu was right: perhaps he _would_ enjoy this voyage.

* * *

The world of a sealing steamer was deafening but not frantically busy at the outset. It wasn’t like fishing, where you were at it from port to port: it would take weeks to reach the seal herds, and in those weeks there was nothing exciting to do but take care of the precious engines and prepare for the season. Jiyong and Taesu, on the other hand, were kept active enough the first few days that they dropped into their hammocks like stones at night – Jiyong still didn’t sleep well but that might have been more about Taesu’s snoring than his own lingering fears. The Nancho was large and there was a lot of running around required, more men to feed, more complex hierarchies to be observed. As he grew used to the structure, however, Jiyong felt satisfied, even grateful that he had been picked to work aboard her. He still hadn’t puzzled out quite _why_ he’d been chosen, but no matter: the important thing was that he proved himself to his superiors.

The cook was taciturn and snappish, which seemed to come with the position, though he wasn’t hard to satisfy: you just moved fast, kept the place clean, and chopped what you were told to chop. Jiyong hadn’t had a lot of interaction with the officers but he was learning through observation whenever he had a free moment. Right now he was in the boiler room where Taesu was doing a shift feeding the furnace; Jiyong hadn’t been required to do the same yet. He didn’t quite know how to ask the engineer to show him the parts of the huge machine – he was aware that his manner was cold rather than charming – but Taesu was friendly enough for two, and had bet the man that Jiyong would be able to shovel for half an hour without giving up; and that if he could he would earn a lecture.

“…My face is peeling off!” panted Jiyong, turning his head away from the steady blast of heat as he stabbed his shovel into the coal pile. He didn’t know how long he’d been doing it; it felt like hours, the shovel was so damn heavy, the handle rough and hot against his palms.

“It’s been about five minutes.”

“Shut…up…” Taesu laughed, his muscles glistening with sweat; his face was bright red in the glow of the furnace.

“Take your shirt off!” Jiyong shook his head stubbornly; he didn’t care to feel vulnerable, not even down here with nobody but the engineer and his assistants to see.

“This is…exhausting!”

“If this was the old days,” Taesu told him, only mildly out of breath, “it would’ve been different: every ship under sail. We might’ve even been Navy boys. We’d have been up in front of the skipper every day studying Chinese and navigation.” Jiyong could take Chinese or leave it, but right now it sounded like heaven to be stuck in a cabin learning hanja instead of shoveling. Besides, the idea of mastering such a practical skill as navigation appealed to him; wouldn’t it be a coup if they could persuade Captain Lee to teach them! Upon hearing this Taesu chuckled; he always did. “Rather not, thanks! My brain’s almost at its limit already.”

“Mm. Most likely.” It was impossible to make the older boy angry; half the time he didn’t notice Jiyong’s frost in any case. Probably just as well, he was considerably bigger even if his mind _wasn’t_ that quick. Taesu shrugged and went on shoveling, so Jiyong took a long drink from the water pail and got back to work.

By the time the smirking engineer called thirty minutes Jiyong could barely lift his head, never mind the shovel. His hands were blistered and he felt giddy, his clothes drenched in sweat; he had to build his stamina! Being quick and nimble wouldn’t help him with this kind of man’s work.

“You’re still holding the shovel, I suppose,” allowed the engineer, obviously amused. Jiyong was too tired to even scowl at him. “C’mon, then, I’ll show you.” He proceeded to lead Jiyong around the machines, explaining exactly how the heat was converted to steam and how that fired the propellers. It might have been a useful lesson but Jiyong could barely tell; he was too limp to retain much of it. “You come work another spell and I’ll show you again,” offered the engineer, shaking his head. “Maybe we’ll get some muscle on you yet.” Jiyong attempted a chilly glare; the heat melted it right off his face, so he agreed instead and made for the boiler room door with legs that felt like rubber. He was staggering along the metal passage in the direction of the galley – it’d be lunch soon and Cook would bawl him out for shirking – when he passed an open door.

“Kwon Jiyong!” came a voice, and the skipper emerged in the doorway; past his wide frame Jiyong saw a large room that must be his cabin, all charts and solid furniture. “Did you fall down the coal hole?” Captain Lee asked, taking in his black-smeared face and look of pie-eyed exhaustion. Jiyong could see him suppressing a laugh.

“I was feeding the boiler, sir.” Lee did laugh then, somehow looking disapproving at the same time.

“And how was that for you?”

“…Very hard, sir.”

“You see, Jiyong,” the Captain told him in a teacherly tone, “for a man to succeed in life he has to play to his strengths; there’s no point chasing after something you’re not suited to. That’s why the Nancho is so successful, you know: everyone fits their role perfectly. If you have good aim you train as a hunter; if you’re muscular you pull an oar and shovel coal. If you don’t have either of those traits, well, perhaps you’ll be a cook, or you’ll learn engineering or something else.” Out of nowhere Jiyong was struck by a memory of Choi, who had brains and muscles _and_ aim, the bastard. Perhaps _those_ were the men who became captains. But no – Jiyong would show him, would show everyone that if you worked hard and maybe used a couple of tricks you could reach the top; even if you happened to be lacking in a few key areas.

“That was why I was down there, sir,” he said boldly, pushing the image of Choi aside. “I wanted to learn about the engine.”

“Ah. Well, isn’t that laudable.” Lee took out a pocket watch and stepped over the high lip of the doorframe. “But you needn’t make yourself ill just to learn; do your scheduled work well and we’ll see about getting you some lessons.”

“Yessir!” replied Jiyong, moving aside so the man could pass; Lee strode off. Perhaps the skipper was right; there had to be better ways of moving up than breaking your back. He hoped so, anyway. Jiyong hurried on his way, feeling a strange sensation that he guessed might be optimism. He dismissed it: Taesu must be getting to him. But it kept coming back.

* * *

Jiyong was having another sleepless night, though this particular time it wasn’t for any sinister reason: the sea was rough, further from land now than he had ever been as they headed for the coast of Japan. Also, Taesu’s snores were deafening. Jiyong padded barefoot down the cold passage, his rolling sailor’s gait compensating for the pitch of the ship. Maybe he and his blanket could wedge themselves against one of the benches where the crew messed; if not he’d go up on deck and hope the fresh air made him sleepy. When he reached the mess, however, he found the hunter’s table occupied: the skipper was there, braced absently against the roll and reading a book as if he wasn’t conscious of the ship’s movement at all. Jiyong came to a halt and turned to tiptoe for’ard instead; he’d go on deck. But before he could do so the captain was calling to him, sounding resigned rather than annoyed at being interrupted.

“Can’t sleep?” Jiyong shook his head silently. Lee didn’t look surprised. “Even Cook says he can hear your bunkmate snore.”

“It’s not that, sir; I’m just getting used to the weather.”

“Oh, you’ll sleep sound enough in a few weeks; and once we’ve had a couple of summer storms you’ll think a sea like this is a mill-pond.” Lee yawned and closed his book. It was too far away for Jiyong to see its title, but it looked thick and difficult. “But seeing as you’re up I’d like some cold tea, please.”

“Yes, sir, right away.”

“Bring it to the cabin.” Jiyong nodded and scurried off, discarding his blanket in the galley and steeping the tea leaves in fresh water. He poured it into a tin mug – he couldn’t find anything fancier – and made his way to the captain’s cabin, trying not to spill it.

“Here, sir.”

“Just put it down on the desk,” said Lee with a flap of his hand. He was looking at a shelf of books on the right side of the cabin, the first such shelf Jiyong had ever seen aboard a ship; was being a reader key to being successful? He rather hoped not. Stepping carefully over the door-sill he crossed to the desk fixed against the port wall, taking in the rest of the swaying room while trying not to look obvious. In addition to the desk and chair and bookshelf there were several spacious wall lockers, another large carved chair bolted down with cushions scattered on it, a tin bath, and a proper hanging bunk instead of a hammock; its gimbals kept it level as the high sea rolled the ship. Jiyong quit staring before he was done cataloguing everything; he felt envious enough. If he had a place like this to live he’d never bother coming in to port! It set his determination even further – one day he would be a wealthy captain.

He had to shift the charts a little to set the tea down. They were clearly painstaking work but looked impossible to understand; he frowned at them a while, forgetting where he was: navigation, that was what he most needed to learn. Any old engineer could keep the boilers running, but only the captain could direct the ship and bring her home safely.

“Can you tell where we are?” he heard the skipper ask, and a second later Jiyong heard him come up behind him. Lee reached over his shoulder to pick up the mug; Jiyong shivered, a reflex he could not seem to lose, but the man just took a swig and traced a large circle on the topmost chart with his forefinger. “Within this general area.”

“No, sir,” said Jiyong, caught between irritation at admitting his lack of skill and hopefulness that he might get Lee to explain it sometime. “I can’t read maps, let alone fix a position.” He could sense the captain smiling away behind him.

“Well, let’s start with the basics.” Lee moved to pull back the chair for him and gestured for him to sit down, and Jiyong felt his own lips twitch in what might be the beginnings of a smile. He was surprised: perhaps it did pay to show your weak points occasionally! “Maps are always set out with the compass points thus.” Lee pointed them out. “And you can figure out which direction the ship’s heading in using her own compass; or if you can’t see that, the position of the sun or moon. But more important is knowing where you are – and what’s coming next. If you know your position the chart can theoretically tell you everything: water depth, reefs, sandbanks, tides; everything that could possibly run you into trouble.”

“But how do you work out where you are, sir?” Jiyong inquired; the chart was littered with numbers and symbols he couldn’t parse at all.

“One thing at a time,” cautioned Lee, and began to explain them. He took sips from his tea as he did so, once offering Jiyong the mug; Jiyong took it, hardly thinking anything of it, he was so gleeful at how easy this had been. He didn’t even notice the captain setting a hand on his shoulder as he leaned over the chart. It was only when he felt a thumb slide gently along his collar and come to rest at the nape of his neck that he became aware of it, alerted by the resumption of his shivers. Jiyong stopped listening to the lesson and began listening to his body; he had spent some time now trying to get rid of these automatic reactions – everyone since the Rina had been so decent that he was convinced they were mere paranoia. But now he thought…perhaps not always.

“Could…could you tell me again what this is, sir?” he asked, bending forward to point and hoping to shake the hand off; maybe the skipper didn’t even know he was doing it. But it followed him, this time smoothing up to cradle the back of his neck at his hairline. Jiyong’s scalp began to prickle: not paranoia, not this time.

“Jiyong,” said Lee, in a low, calm voice laced with the same thing Jiyong had seen in other men’s eyes. Jiyong twisted nervously away from his hand and saw that the steel cabin door, which he’d left open when he came in, was firmly shut.

“I’m getting sleepy, sir!” He jumped to his feet, making the chair clatter as he tried to skirt around it. “I’d better go.”

“Sleep here,” the older man suggested, his tone telling Jiyong it was in fact no suggestion. He reached out, and before Jiyong could get round his bulk he had curled one hand behind his neck again, this time getting a firm grip on his collar. “Let’s get to know each other better.” At that Jiyong dropped all pretense of being ignorant and set both hands to Lee’s grasping fist to pry himself free, straining backwards with a growl of effort – the man was so strong! He angled his head round to try and bite his forearm, but before he could get a purchase the captain barreled forward, ducking like a Japanese wrestler and throwing Jiyong easily over his shoulder. Jiyong let out a startled yell, beating his fists against Lee’s back – this wouldn’t happen again! He had promised himself _never again_! He’d promised he’d be smarter… “If you insist on making it like this,” he heard the skipper grunt, as he held the writhing young man with one arm and hoisted him over to the bunk, “then you’ll have to endure the indignity of being treated like a side of beef!”

“Let _go_!” snarled Jiyong, his body flooding with all those panic responses he had sworn to himself never to need again. Lee did so immediately, as if _he_ was the courteous one; he let Jiyong tumble to the bunk, soft and springy, an expensive bed.

“Are you going to be obliging? You’ll be much more comfortable.”

“I’ll scream,” Jiyong threatened in a shaking voice, trying to calculate which side of Lee’s big body to attack in order to get past him. Surely this jolly, popular officer wouldn’t want to be revealed as a criminal. The captain smiled, still genial but with an edge to it.

“It would have to be very loud what with the metal walls, the engine, the ocean.” Jiyong was pretty sure he could shout like a foghorn in these circumstances. “And even if you do,” added Lee as the boy opened his mouth, “you’ll only deprive the nearest hands of their well-earned sleep. They’ll be grouchy in the morning, and that’s a bother.”

“A _bother_?” That word again, Inoue had used the same one; was he saying no-one on this huge ship would care?!

“Besides, do you really want to be seen like this?”

“Like what?” Jiyong knew he looked scared; he also hoped he looked furious – he could feel his lip curled up, baring his teeth.

“Like this.” Lee pounced, pinning Jiyong easily with the weight of just one arm. He rolled him over, ignoring his struggles, and Jiyong felt rope loop around his wrists in a very familiar way which for several seconds made him lose control of his senses. Somehow, amidst all the kicking and snarling and wriggling, the older man managed to strip him, setting his clothes neatly at the end of the bunk; his shirt was stuck at his wrists, so Lee wound it around his forearms for extra restraint. Jiyong _did_ scream then, a howl quickly cut off when Lee turned him back over and slapped him – not hard, but enough to make him flinch and lose his breath. “I am a successful captain,” Lee reminded him, only slightly out of breath himself. Jiyong had frozen at the slap, and as Lee spoke his smile returned approvingly. “I get good hauls, and that makes my crew wealthy too. They stick with me season after season – and if I happen to have rather an esoteric hobby, why, they indulge me. All in all we have the most harmonious ship on the North Pacific station.” He took Jiyong’s jaw in one hand. “This season my indulgence is you, my lovely boy. I daresay they’ve figured that out by now.”

“…They _know_?” managed Jiyong incredulously. And they didn’t even resent it – they _indulged_ it? Suddenly wealth seemed disgusting to him: was this what it meant? Corruption?

“Of course. So you may as well relax and enjoy it; my companions always do, even if they’re unsure at the start. I’d like your acquiescence, Jiyong – your cooperation, ideally. You won’t see land again for months in any case – where would you run?”

“What if I don’t cooperate?” spat Jiyong, just to be sure; Lee had seemed so amiable, but he was no different from Inoue.

“I don’t like hurting my bed-mates,” Lee assured him. “But if you can’t behave, I will until you learn.” Moving slowly he set his hands to Jiyong’s bare shoulders and eased him down, pivoting him bodily until he was lying full-length atop the fine wool covers. Jiyong felt himself flinch at every touch – a visceral reaction to the old fear of being hurt. His brain told him to be still – to avoid the pain – but his body couldn’t manage it; his breathing sped up, panicked at the conflict between the two. Still, it seemed enough to mollify the bigger man. “Good boy.” Lee’s hand touched his face, traced his scar; the smile had turned warm and thoughtful. He ran a finger along Jiyong’s clavicle, curled his hand briefly into a fist, and relaxed it once he observed his prey’s helpless wince. “You’ve been with a man before,” he concluded.

“…Yes,” said Jiyong through gritted teeth.

“I could tell; there’s a certain way you look at us. On another ship?” He nodded, and the skipper pressed his arm consolingly. Jiyong could scarcely believe his audacity – did the man really think he was doing nothing wrong?! “He was violent, I suppose,” Lee continued, sounding sympathetic. Jiyong pressed his lips together, all memories of Inoue temporarily wiped out in the face of this new nightmare. Stupid: he had been _so stupid_ , to trust another man in power! Lee sighed but stopped questioning him in favor of exploring his body. Jiyong found it unbearable – only he _had_ to bear it – but also baffling. In a warped way he had understood Inoue’s quick, businesslike assaults: the man was an animal who couldn’t wait until port to satisfy his cock and wouldn’t pay for a woman when he got there, so he turned to rape as an easy option – which was why he had ended up in a jail cell. It wasn’t a preference; he never even looked at Jiyong when he fucked him, didn’t touch anything that wasn’t someplace he could put his dick. This careful attention in contrast felt… _perverse_.

“Please don’t touch me,” Jiyong ground out; and then, when Lee didn’t stop, thumbs circling his nipples: “…Why do you _want_ to? Why do you want to _look_ at me?!”

“I love beautiful young men,” Lee explained in a croon that made Jiyong’s toes curl; he sounded _proud_ of it. “Always did. That’s why I try to hire two galley assistants: one to work for the ship and one to work for _me_. I didn’t just pick you for that glowing reference and the lie about your age; I’d decided the instant I saw your face. I’ve just been waiting for you to feel at home.” Jiyong wanted to spit at that but Lee was too far away, sitting astride his feet in case he tried to move. His thick fingers brushed down Jiyong’s stomach until they reached the hair between his legs. “Still soft,” he commented, stroking through it as Jiyong’s abdominal muscles tightened and quivered with revulsion. His palm cupped the inside of Jiyong’s thigh. “Soft everywhere; wonderful.” Sliding his hand along the boy’s calf he took an iron grip on his ankle just as Jiyong was tensing to kick him in the balls. “No more coal hauling for you! You’re perfect just like this: smooth and sleek and tender.” Jiyong immediately wanted to throw up, and not only because the man’s left hand was slowly massaging his buttocks; every single one of those words was hateful to him – they were everything he didn’t want to be.

“Please…stop talking!” He couldn’t hide the note of distress. Lee gave him a curious look, but shut up for a scant minute so he could bend over Jiyong, who guessed at the last second what he was going to try and do and turned his face away in disgust.

“If you like,” said Lee amiably, and set his lips to Jiyong’s neck instead. It felt sickening! Jiyong tensed further as the ripples of protest ran up and down his throat, sweat springing beneath Lee’s mouth. The man felt closer to Jiyong than Inoue had ever been, even when he’d been buried inside him, and it was somehow far more terrifying.

“Don’t…” His arms were straining at the ropes convulsively, wanting to push that broad body away; they were already hurting, trapped beneath his weight, and now his wrists were rubbing raw. Lee ignored him this time, moving down to take Jiyong’s nipple in his mouth. Jiyong felt the warmth and wetness and gasped, whimpering in protest; he hated the way he sounded but the noises kept coming out, rising to a faint squeal when the older man took the nipple between his teeth.

“You taste as sweet as you look,” Lee told him with satisfaction. “Which is no mean feat.” He sat and admired his handiwork, then swooped back down to torment the other side. As his tongue circled the nub of flesh Jiyong felt nausea swirl in his stomach, followed by a flutter of something he couldn’t pinpoint but which made his frightened breath come faster. The captain let out a low chuckle and lifted his head to observe Jiyong’s face. “Ah, you’re no different from the others; only prettier.” Jiyong frowned, then cried out loud in shock as Lee’s hand curled around his soft penis. “I’ll show you,” said Lee. “You’ll understand, Jiyong; this is just another kind of lesson.”

“I don’t want to learn it!”

“You did earlier – coming to my cabin alone, in the middle of the night, for shame!” Lee was stroking him, the way Jiyong did when he was masturbating – not that he did that much these days. Jiyong glanced down, past his reddened nipples hardened by the chilly air, and saw the horrifying image of his own cock in another man’s hand. He closed his eyes quickly, his testicles wanting to crawl up inside him at the sight. Inoue had never done this! What could Lee be _getting_ out of it? He didn’t understand, which only made it worse. “Hmm. Perhaps this,” came Lee’s voice, and Jiyong _felt_ it, felt the breath against him. Then his eyes slammed wide open as the older man’s mouth closed on the head of his cock.

Instantly Jiyong’s fight-or-flight response kicked in and he writhed away, appalled. Lee simply pinned him down with one thick forearm, and as both options were now impossible Jiyong’s body froze instead. He could hear himself hyperventilating as the captain took him deeper, began to toy with him in touches that slowly became a rhythm. And he could only let his breath out in a whine when, against all logic and decency, he felt himself start to fill out in his skipper’s mouth. Lee made an ‘I told you so’ sort of noise, muffled as his tongue attacked Jiyong’s sensitive places, the places only his own fingers had ever touched before.

“Ugh…!” cried Jiyong in dismay, as his hips tried to lift themselves off the covers to thrust further into that heat; a wave of warmth rolled from his genitals to his belly, a sensation he might otherwise recognize as pleasure – but it couldn’t be, he _couldn’t_ find this stimulating! His breath came even faster and he felt himself close to some sort of mental crisis at the thought of it; but at that moment Lee stopped. Jiyong could have wept in gratitude, which made him feel even sicker.

“It took a little longer than I thought,” said Lee in a hoarse voice, wearing the biggest smile Jiyong had seen yet, “but I said I’d show you.” When Jiyong didn’t respond, just silently willed himself soft again, the big man added: “I taught you earlier, remember? A place for everything, and everything in its place – and this is yours. You’re not tough or muscular, you don’t yet have any skills that qualify you for a sealing steamer. But you’re attractive to me and I make you feel good: there. You have your role, and we can enjoy our voyage comfortably.”

“ _Feel good_?” was all Jiyong could say, incredulous.

“Your body’s quicker to recognize your place, that’s all; your mind will come around. Especially since you’re used to being admired by men.”

“Being _used to it_ doesn’t mean I _want_ it.”

“But it shows you where your strengths lie: pleasing us. Play to it, my beautiful boy, and you’ll reap the rewards.” So saying, he slid an arm beneath Jiyong’s shoulders and drew him up, kneeling above him and unfastening his own garments. “Let’s see how well you can please _me_ this way.” Jiyong turned his head away; he knew what was about to happen, and in truth it was less revolting to him than having his own body toyed with. But he couldn’t invite it. He waited for the captain to shake him by the hair, Inoue’s usual method of making him open his mouth. Lee just knelt there, erection at attention, and looked at him encouragingly. “Come along, show me.”

“…What do you want me to _do_?”

“You said you’d been with a man before,” said Lee, a mild furrow between his eyebrows. “Didn’t you use your mouth?”

“ _He_ used it,” Jiyong retorted bitterly, waiting for it to happen again, the pain and wrenched neck and loss of air.

“Ah.” Lee reached out and touched his hair; Jiyong winced, anticipating the pull, but to his perturbation Lee merely ran his fingers through it; it felt like insects dancing on his scalp. “No wonder you don’t know what’s what. I see I’ll have to start your lessons from scratch.” He didn’t sound displeased, in fact he looked _understanding_. None of his reactions made the slightest bit of sense. “Then we’ll start here, seeing as I just gave you a demonstration,” Lee said with a grin. “The art of fellatio.” Jiyong looked up at him, and silently capitulated. What else could he do?

Deep in the night Jiyong lay there awake, skin crawling from his captain’s breath on the nape of his neck. Finally, after some hasty warnings about teeth and a great deal of nauseating, jaw-aching practice, he had been able to make the man climax; he could still taste it in his mouth. Lee had turned affectionate and sleepy right after, but wouldn’t let Jiyong leave. To the boy’s utter dismay he announced that Jiyong would share his bed, his cabin, tonight and every other night – Taesu might have their cubby to himself. Having no choice, Jiyong lay down on the hull side and spent the rest of the night wondering how he would be able to face Taesu once he found out; he must be the only one who didn’t know, who didn’t condone their skipper’s warped desires for the sake of a pleasant trip. It would be the same humiliation as last time, he supposed: disgust, blame, judgment.

In between this familiar foreboding he cursed himself again for his cowardly aversion to pain, that useful tool: it would have been much easier to get through this ordeal if he had been in agony! Those fleeting, stomach-churning wisps of pleasure haunted him. What did that say about him, that he could get hard during his own abuse? Was Lee right? Perhaps he _was_ only fit for this, and his body was trying to tell him so; perhaps that was what had drawn Choi to him, even Inoue and any other man who had looked at him with lust. He told himself that was absurd, that his body was merely confused because Lee had been so friendly, even gentle with him before. But he couldn’t sleep for worrying he might be right.

* * *

“Hey,” murmured Taesu during breakfast prep, quiet enough that Cook wouldn’t snap at them, “I’m real sorry about the noise.” Jiyong stared at him dully; he’d still been awake when Lee roused him at half past five. Fortunately the captain was conscientious of his duties and was an early riser too. He had only touched Jiyong a little before forcing him to repeat his lesson of the night before and sending him on his way.

“…Noise?” Jiyong echoed.

“Cook said you haven’t been sleeping. Someone must’ve spoken to the skipper, right? He said you’re to sling your hammock in sick bay.”

“Oh. Yeah…” So that was the excuse for Jiyong’s disappearance from the cubby? He wondered who’d dreamed that up – Lee himself? Cook? He wondered why they even bothered, merely for the sake of keeping Taesu ignorant of his captain’s sick passions. He’d find out soon enough, surely, and then Jiyong would never see that contented puppy-dog expression again.

“I can’t help it,” Taesu apologized. “I’ve got this medical thing – something about a septum. But I know it’s awful bad.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Jiyong mechanically. Taesu crinkled his eyes at him and they went on preparing breakfast. Whenever Cook passed by Jiyong thought he could detect a knowing glance; he felt himself go pale but set his jaw and worked on, inwardly searching for a way out of this ugliness. Would the knife work against Lee? he wondered. It hadn’t with Inoue, and Lee was far smarter; even if he succeeded, what then? He couldn’t run – and if he wounded the crew’s beloved skipper his punishment would be unthinkable. He couldn’t do anything, not right now, anyway; he would have to toe the line. Once again, the only consolation he had was acting like nothing was happening.

Lee was in a fine mood when he came down from his night watch to find Jiyong waiting at his door. Jiyong had considered hiding but that never did any good: an officer knew every nook and cranny of his own ship. It soon became clear that he intended to know every one of Jiyong’s, too, and to make each of them react to him in the most humiliating way possible.

“…What _are_ you doing?” he dimly heard Lee say. Jiyong did not reply, because if he told the truth it would no doubt have the opposite effect to what he was aiming for. He had his eyes screwed shut and his hands over both ears as the big man teased his cock into stiffness, free hand stroking luxuriously over his thighs, his balls, the sensitive skin at the backs of his knees. Because while this nauseating push for pleasure was absolutely more awful than anything Inoue had done to him, it wasn’t the worst thing Lee liked to do: he liked to _talk_. “Come on, take your hands away. You stupid boy, don’t you like to be complimented?” His face must have said it all, because the captain reached out and removed them himself, wrapping a cord around Jiyong’s wrists – softer than last night, his skin was still raw there – and fastening it with ease to the metal frame of the bunk above his head. “Why don’t you like it?” he pressed once Jiyong was unable to stop listening.

“Because I hate you.” Jiyong didn’t want anyone to know how he felt about his own inadequacies, let alone this man: he would probably enjoy exploiting his self-disgust.

“Your pretty little cock doesn’t hate me,” countered Lee, demonstrating. “Oh, what a face! But you seem to like my hand, so it _must_ be the praise.” He ran his palms over Jiyong’s hipbones, sliding them beneath him for an indulgent squeeze of his arse before sitting back on his heels and regarding him like he was a New Year banquet. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had aboard my ship; your cheek only throws it into sharp relief.” Jiyong pressed his lips together in an effort to keep silent – that wasn’t the point of the scar at all! Lee smoothed his hands along Jiyong’s arms, making the fine hairs prickle and stand on end, and did the same to his legs. “You’re made perfectly in miniature – like those European dolls the Japanese women collect. Every limb exquisitely turned.” He hooked one arm under Jiyong’s knee, raised it and bent to kiss his thigh. “Your skin is so soft, so sweet; your mouth is sweet even when it’s cursing me.” He was exaggerating, Jiyong knew, ladling it on for his own amusement – but dear god, it touched Jiyong’s rawest nerve.

“Fuck you,” he spat, his mouth feeling nothing but bitterness.

“So charming. But since you ask.” Lee turned to rummage in a locker at the foot of the bunk and extracted a jar that Jiyong could guess the purpose of only too well – it had only been a matter of time, this high-faluting flowery romance was all so much wrapping; of course Lee wanted the same as Inoue. He thought he would almost welcome it, the roughness and the burn, the straightforward humiliation: it would be better than the slow torture of his amorous attentions. Lee was a man, none of them could control themselves; he would be fast and brutal.

He tensed up and waited for the older man to roll him onto his stomach or his knees, the direct attack that would follow. Lee dipped the fingers of one hand in the oil, settled Jiyong’s calf on his left shoulder and spread his thighs – not yet? thought Jiyong, thrown. He quickly closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look. Slick fingers dipped between his buttocks, stroking gently, an alien sensation; he wriggled in distaste. Then one thick digit slipped into him, horribly slow – Jiyong didn’t like it at all, being able to feel its progress.

“You’ve not had a man for a long time,” surmised the captain, sounding pleased but rather surprised.

“That was the _plan_ ,” ground out Jiyong accusingly. “Until you, you god-damn…” He bit his lip, inhaling sharply: Lee’s free hand had closed around his penis again, warm and slippery, the lubrication from the oil creating a smooth glide Jiyong had never experienced before. It was an insidious feeling: one butterfly, two, three, fluttered in his stomach, and he became almost fully hard; Lee’s finger was moving inside him now, thrusting gently in time with his other hand. It was disgusting, disgusting, trapped from both sides so that whichever way he moved he felt it more! Then Lee’s finger brushed against something inside him that made his eyes roll back in his head, a startled cry spilling past his teeth as his limbs quivered. The sensation disappeared and he collapsed back against the pillows, panting in shock: it had been so intense that at first he’d felt it as pain, but it _wasn’t_ – his prick was rigid and straining in Lee’s fist.

“God, you have a pretty voice,” said Lee admiringly, the bulge beneath his trousers now clearly visible. “Let me hear it again.” And he did it once more. Jiyong tried desperately not to react but it was useless; then Lee had added a second broad finger and somehow the stretch felt good, slow and steady, and again came that blinding flash of pleasure. Fuck – was Jiyong a pervert too? A man shouldn’t be able to feel pleasure that way, shouldn’t be able to feel aroused at all: if he _really_ didn’t want it why was he so hard now, why was he rocking his hips to get more of that diabolical touch?! _Did he know himself at all_?

“Ahh…!”

“That’s right, that’s my good honest boy,” Lee encouraged him, a cheerful smile on his face as both hands pumped Jiyong faster. “Another minute and you’ll come.”

“No!!” Jiyong burst out in a strangled voice, starting up as far as he could in true horror – that was _impossible_.

“I suppose it would be a bit quick,” the bigger man agreed. “After all, stamina’s important in any job.” And he removed his hands from Jiyong’s body, leaving the boy gasping with relief. Lee hurriedly revealed his own erection and Jiyong almost urged him on: he wanted it to stop feeling good, and sex was repulsive. But Lee didn’t move to flip him over, only spread his legs wider and settled between them, and with a thrill of disgust Jiyong realized he was going to do it just like this – as if they were man and wife! He couldn’t imagine anything more unnatural; and yet at the same time his body was still quivering with the sense-memory of that pleasure, surely just as deviant in its nature; but that hadn’t stopped Lee from doing it. The bastard would do _anything_. He felt his cock twitch, hard against his belly, as the older man tugged him close and thumbed his buttocks apart. Jiyong took a shuddering breath, bracing for pain that never came.

“ _God_ …!” he heard himself moan, as if his voice was someone else’s, someone petrified but somehow shameless. Lee pressed inside him and it burned and ached and stretched; the man was watching him with a calculating expression, and oh, there it was again, that stab of pleasure inside him that sent all the wrong messages to the rest of his body. Then it was gone and he found enough control to beg Lee to stop, over and over as he was filled and then fucked in the cruelest way imaginable: with skill. Jiyong hadn’t even known that was possible; and if he had he would have run inland ‘til he found someplace where all the men were dead and never gone to sea again. It was intolerable.

“You sound like a kitten,” Lee murmured to him, moving slowly and exactingly, like the engine moved. His weight and bulk forced Jiyong’s thighs even wider, stomach just brushing the head of his penis, a torturous motion.

“Hurry…up,” pleaded Jiyong; his eyes were watering, his arms aching in their sockets.

“Why? I’m not tired. I could…look at you all night.” Lee touched his face, stroked his throat. “You’re so pale I can see every place you blush…” He palmed Jiyong’s erection as if to illustrate his point; Jiyong felt his muscles clench in response. Apparently that was a pleasant feeling: Lee began to move faster and Jiyong prayed it would be over soon. “…You’re as good as a woman!” gasped Lee with a groan, too distracted now to see how he winced. “ _Better_ than a woman – I swear, there’s no-one in the entire country so perfectly made for this! If you could only see yourself…so lovely, so obliging, even when you’re telling yourself it’s wrong…what madman would want a wife when he could have a sweet little pet like _you_?” He thrust in hard, hitting that same spot over and over as the torrent of praise continued.

And at that Jiyong wept for the first time – not the silent physical reaction to pain or anger but true deep misery at what he was hearing. It was all the insults he’d ever received: too small, too pretty, too delicate, _not man enough_ : all coming from one monster’s mouth. And the monster was proving his point every second, damn him, as the pleasure ran all over Jiyong’s body like spiders; he hated it, _hated_ it, and he began to sob in earnest when Lee took his weeping cock in hand again, finally fucking him hard and fast, but it _didn’t help_ , only forced Jiyong closer to the edge.

He climaxed as Lee was panting that he didn’t need to be strong, he should embrace his softness and do what he was born to do, that he would be happy if he would only let Lee take care of him. The bigger man kept stroking and fucking him through that hellish orgasm; then the captain turned entirely to his own satisfaction, hooking Jiyong’s thighs in both arms and using his soft and yielding body as he pleased. But by that point Jiyong hardly noticed: he had finally achieved his trick of detaching, and lay there staring at the lockers above him as his body was moved like a rag doll; only this time Jiyong had no pain to fall into – instead he had lost himself in despair.

* * *

By the time they reached the Bering Sea Jiyong felt he had undergone a process of transformation, one he had no say in whatsoever. He didn’t know himself anymore, and he didn’t want anything to do with the person he had become – this person who let his captain in and felt ecstasy when he did. By day he played the role of his old self, the introverted galley boy who, like Taesu, looked forward to his daily chores being done. It felt strange now, although the only person he was really lying to was Taesu. Perhaps it was underhanded to do that, as if their acquaintance was deepening under false pretenses, but he couldn’t stop himself – he wanted at least one person to remember the old Jiyong.

He spent his nights participating in his skipper’s lessons: at the charts and in his bed. Lee didn’t have to tie him now, he opened his legs automatically, always beginning with a resolution to stay mentally distant but never managing it: Lee showed him so many twisted new things, tormenting him until his body was quivering all over in anticipation of having that big cock inside him, while his mind looked on in sorrow. Lee approved of this development – he said so often enough, in the most shameful terms. But he most liked Jiyong when he was pliant and quiet, sometimes bringing him to orgasm quickly so he could take his own time afterwards, fucking him slowly while he was soft and vulnerable. It didn’t hurt, and he never seemed to understand why Jiyong cried.

Jiyong knew long before they reached the hunting grounds that his new self was unnatural, unmanly, and deviant – not only for getting hard under another man’s touch but because he could feel a kind of aching pleasure even when he was soft, when Lee touched that place inside him; when he kissed him. Jiyong never let him do it while in his right mind, had even bitten him once and been beaten for it ‘til his arse was red as the sunset; just sometimes, when he had given up in disgust on his traitorous body’s responses – then he would allow it. And after he had come and cried himself out he found he slept easily. That was the clincher, even though when he slept he invariably dreamed of Choi, and what it would have been like had he chosen differently; and he knew that his new self, or his real self that Lee’s ministrations had somehow unearthed, was truly sick.

It wasn’t until they had been on the sealing station for a week that his hatred of himself began to get complicated. Jiyong had been spending his scant free time whittling on deck or up the steamer’s small foremast, watching the endless gray of the Bering Sea and thinking how fitting a place it was for him. He observed the hunters and crew go out in the boats, the way they killed the seals and stored the hides. He logged the information automatically but couldn’t feel a deeper interest in it – how would it benefit him, after all? Lee had told him he wasn’t suited to any of these hard tasks, and Jiyong had come to believe him. He now understood that this was what men had seen in him all down the line; his true nature had been visible to everyone but himself. That was where Choi’s proposition had come from, he was certain of it: the older boy had recognized that Jiyong was useless for anything else and would need protection from all the other men who felt the same. And perhaps it would have been like this, not like with Inoue; perhaps Jiyong would have felt desire. He pushed aside an image of Choi caressing him, mouth on him. It made him feel vaguely ill, and he was glad, assuring himself again that he had done the right thing: pleasure or not it would have been disgusting. Better to be broken by a stranger like Lee than by his once-beloved brother.

“Hey,” said a voice, and Jiyong felt someone sit down beside him. The sailor slid his legs through the rails to let them dangle over the prow as Jiyong was doing. Struggling out of his personal doldrums, Jiyong gave his unlooked-for companion a sideways glance. “You were miles away,” the other man said casually in an unrefined but not unfriendly voice. It was Park Heesun, steerer of the Number Three boat; a tall, good-looking man in his mid-twenties Jiyong had never interacted with beyond the occasional nod of thanks for a tasty supper.

“I wish I was,” he replied flatly.

“Want me to bugger off?” Jiyong shrugged. He wondered why Park was speaking to him – he must know what Jiyong was, they all did – but he didn’t have the energy to ask. “Just thought I’d see how you’re settlin’ in,” continued the sailor. “Your first sealer, I heard?” Jiyong shrugged again. “An’ there’s no sealer quite like Skipper Lee’s.” Seeing Jiyong purse his lips he gave the boy a wry smile. “That’s why I ask; you seem to be havin’ some trouble.” For the first time Jiyong really looked at him, astounded – could it be that someone actually felt _bad_ for him? “No need to act so frosty,” coaxed Park. “Sometimes it’s good to have a chat – if there’s anythin’ on your mind.”

“…I hate it here,” said Jiyong after a fraught pause; if he talked to this young man honestly it would shatter his carefully-maintained performance that nothing was happening. But he looked receptive, and Jiyong was so lonely. “If I’d had the slightest inkling of what kind of ship this was I’d never have set foot on her.”

“You mean a happy, successful ship?”

“You know what I mean,” Jiyong snapped.

“Oh, I know. But you get used to him – to all of it.” Jiyong was about to round on him, maybe hit him, when Park added: “Believe me, I know what I’m talkin’ about.” Jiyong wanted to ask him how he could possibly know _anything_ ; then his jaw dropped. “I signed on as ship’s boy ‘bout seven years since,” Park told him, giving the Nancho’s rail a reminiscing pat. “I was just a bit bigger’n you then. I was a nice-lookin’ kid, all the girls told me; so you can guess why I got picked.” Jiyong felt a wave of sympathy, followed by a stab of distaste that was aimed at himself as much as Park.

“He made you his _pet_.”

“Sure, we screwed,” admitted the young man as if it was nothing. “Then when I was nineteen I hit a growth spurt, put on height and muscle and he lost interest.” Jiyong absently filed that piece of information away for later – perhaps he would get bigger too! He’d almost given up on growing any more.

“But…you’re still _here_.”

“Sure. After he kicked me outta bed I got a promotion – a reward. I’ve been with the Nancho ever since. It’s a pleasant ship, good mates, and I make good money. You can have the same if ya stick with it, that’s what I wanted to tell you – ‘cos some days it seems like you’re losin’ your grip.” This was beyond belief.

“Yes,” hissed Jiyong, “I’m losing my god-damn grip! I _hate him_ – he told me I’m no use for anything but bedding!”

“Aww, that’s just the way he talks when he’s in the mood. He’ll see you get a good job after. An’ it’s not _so_ bad during, either. Sure, I was surprised when he first asked me to do it; but you get your rocks off, don’t ya?”

“Yeah,” Jiyong said, stomach clenching at the thought of it. “And so he’s made me hate myself as well – he’s turned me into a _pervert_. Now I’m ruined.” Park gave him an uncomprehending look.

“What d’you mean?”

“He did things to me and I got hard,” hissed Jiyong. “I’m not…I’m not normal anymore.”

“Oh, balls,” said Park, and laughed as if he really found it funny. Jiyong stared at him. “Damn, ya look scary when you go all white like that,” he added, still chuckling. “Look, kid, you’re thinkin’ too much. You ain’t a different person from before. I thought that way too for a week or so, but it ain’t true; this don’t make you some kind of deviant: you’re the same as any other lad. Skipper just knows men’s bodies like the engineer knows the boiler.”

“What the fuck does _that_ mean?”

“I mean you ain’t gettin’ hot ‘cos you’re a special case – he just knows how to touch ya so you’ll react. It’s all mechanics, any man would come the same way if he did it to them. Even if your mind’s got some kind of moral issue; it can’t control what your body does. It can just make you miserable after if ya let it.”

“You’re saying… _you_ went back to normal?” asked Jiyong in a tremulous voice, hardly daring to hope.

“Whatever ‘normal’ is, I guess.” Park furrowed his eyebrows as if this was profound thinking. “I still love to do it with women; I got a sweetheart in Sokcho, should be able to afford to get married soon. Once in a while the urge strikes me to get my insides tickled but it ain’t like it’s hamperin’ my life prospects. I’ll be mate one day if I keep learnin’; that’s well worth puttin’ up with his whims.”

“…Oh.”

“So let the Skipper spoil you, let yourself enjoy it – it’s worth it for a good job at the end.”

“But I don’t…” _Did_ he enjoy it? thought Jiyong frantically. Did physical pleasure not equal enjoyment? He supposed it did, however much his head protested the idea.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” advised Park hurriedly, as a shout from the first mate brought him springing to his feet. “You’re a healthy male and your body’s doin’ its own thing. You ain’t at fault for any of it.”

Jiyong wanted to say something in return but couldn’t, so Park shrugged and jogged away. What _was_ there to say? His head was spinning and he needed time to think – to work out if perhaps, just perhaps, he was redeemable after all.

* * *

It was summer and they were paying off in Busan, the season over, storms and hardship passed and their hold bulging with expensive skins; and still Jiyong didn’t know. He couldn’t believe that a real man could tolerate what was being done to him and react to it so strongly; a normal man wouldn’t moan like a whore or grasp his attacker’s arse to pull him closer, so desperate was he to climax. Oh, there was Park, of course, who seemed very ordinary for what he’d gone through: big and strong, about to start a family and work his way up the career ladder. But Park was a fool and didn’t realize what Jiyong did – that even if this _was_ all about nerves and chemicals, encouraging that pleasure, whether in the moment or not, made him complicit. And _that_ wasn’t normal.

Jiyong sat halfway up the mast out of the way while they approached the wharf, the Nancho’s engines quiet as she drifted under her own lingering momentum and the two small sails. He didn’t know what he would do when he got back to land; his bag was packed and he ought to be planning what his next berth would be, if there was any possible way he could ensure his own safety now he’d learned Korean ships were no more trustworthy than Japanese. He couldn’t seem to think ahead, couldn’t see beyond the fog of what he had let himself become.

He stayed up there for hours, watching Lee and the mates deal with the port officials in their robes and tall hats, meeting with the wealthy Japanese merchants who would purchase the fine seal skins. The other sailors had disembarked in a hurry to kick up their heels ashore – they’d all been paid and were swimming in money – leaving only the officers and a small harbor watch.

“Hey!” Taesu called up to him. “You coming down? Let’s go drinking, find some girls!” Jiyong descended quietly, because why not; he could at least try to do things other men did, and perhaps he would find Park was right. Perhaps there _was_ a way back. Besides, Taesu was the only one who looked at him as if he were still untouched: thank god for his native dimness. “You staying on for the cargo season?” Taesu asked eagerly. “They say the Skipper only needs a small crew for the winter trips but the hunters and such won’t come – they get enough cash from their shares, they can loaf about ‘til spring.”

“I…don’t think so.”

“Ask him,” urged Taesu. “What’ve you got lined up that’s any better?” Jiyong spread his hands mechanically; he simply didn’t know.

Taesu was still talking when they heard Lee’s booming voice outside the galley.

“Kwon! Come get your pay.”

“Ask him,” Taesu repeated, giving Jiyong a push towards the voice. “Then catch up with me – I’ll be in the first place off the wharf that sells drink!” Sighing helplessly to himself, Jiyong went.

“Now then, my darling,” said Lee with a smile once Jiyong was in his arms, “I think we can say you’ve earned this.” He handed the boy an envelope; it was thick, probably twice what he had expected for his rank. Jiyong looked at it blankly. “I daresay you want to join your friends for a bit of fun,” the captain went on, raising his eyebrows at Jiyong’s shrug. “Or perhaps you don’t. Well, then, I want you to hear my proposition.” He squeezed Jiyong’s waist, thumb brushing proprietarily up and down his back.

“Sir?”

“Sign on for the winter season. I transport cargo to and from Yokohama: fertilizer on the way, luxury goods on the way back. Not much to do; plenty of free time for your studies and sex.” Jiyong swallowed. “We don’t leave for three weeks; why not stay at my house in town? It’s very comfortable. I’m rather fond of you, Jiyong,” Lee assured him at his continued silence. “I don’t want to lose track of you before the sealing starts again. Well?” he prompted gently.

“I…I don’t think so, sir. You know I don’t like it.”

“Come now, Jiyong,” said the older man in a chiding tone, as if they both knew better, and Jiyong felt himself flush painfully: perhaps they did. “At any rate, stick with me tonight,” Lee went on in his captain’s tone, the one that anticipated obedience. “See what I can offer you – hear the ideas I’ve got for your career – then decide.” Jiyong opened his mouth, shut it, then gave up and nodded; he had no ideas of his own anymore, and one night wouldn’t make any difference. Lee bent and kissed his neck, nuzzled his ear, and sent him to collect his things.

Lee’s house was the biggest Jiyong had ever set foot in. It had taken a while to arrive, Lee guiding him away from the harbor past the thick trees at the foot of the hill that sloped up from the port. The hanok was surrounded by cultivated land, and when Jiyong stepped hesitantly inside and caught sight of the interior he saw just how well-off a successful independent captain could be. A servant showed Jiyong to a small room where he was told to put his things; she didn’t seem to think there was anything odd about all this. Jiyong pocketed his pay and his knife, because you never knew, and was led back to a reception room that made him stare: furnished in green silk and velvet in the European style, it was twice as big as his father’s shack.

“There you are,” said Lee, who had changed into a light summer robe and was drinking yakju from a glass. Across from him was a thin woman in her fifties; she looked heavily at Jiyong, as if his presence was no surprise but a disappointment, and he hung his head. He wondered wildly if this was Lee’s wife! “My sister,” the skipper explained. “She keeps the place running for me – has a fine time while I’m not here, eh?” He laughed. A glint entered the woman’s eye, and Jiyong was pretty sure that yes, she did, and hadn’t been in any hurry to see him back. “How long ‘til supper?” Lee asked her.

“An hour or more. We only just learned the Nancho was in.”

“No rush.” Lee beamed at her; she obviously didn’t share her brother’s sunny disposition, but then what woman would with the parade of boy toys that must tramp through her home season after season? “My young protégé and I shall clean up and take a rest.”

“Your bed’s made,” she said coolly. Jiyong felt faint: it was one thing for other sailors to know what he was, but a respectable woman…! He couldn’t even look at her as Lee beckoned him from the room.

It was the first time Jiyong had done it in a Western bed; in fact he’d never seen one. It was huge and looked impractically high, and when Lee tossed him onto it he bounced.

“I bought it from an Austrian,” said Lee off-handedly, undressing without ceremony so he could begin on Jiyong. “He has his own ships, so when I said I was curious he brought it over. The old goat told me it was made for luxurious lovemaking – he wasn’t wrong!” Without waiting for comment he spread Jiyong out on the springy surface. “Let me show you.”

It was as painfully intense as any night Jiyong had spent at sea, and more mortifying than ever because the house was full of women – and it wasn’t even dark. Now Lee could see his reactions perfectly, and somehow found even more of him to praise. As usual Jiyong felt sick and resentful at the compliments, even more so now he thought they might be true; but when Lee began those light touches, starting at his limbs and working their tantalizing way to his core, the damnable anticipation crept in again. He was reprieved when the older man lounged back against the brass bedstead and invited Jiyong to suck him; the discomfort and concentration required sometimes helped Jiyong drag his wayward body back in line.

“Don’t be so hasty,” scolded Lee, fingers in his hair as Jiyong took him deep, hoping to bring him to orgasm fast so he’d get sleepy and lose interest. Jiyong glanced up; Lee was beaming at his apparent enthusiasm. “I’ll put it in you presently.” At that a wave of heat lapped at Jiyong’s groin. He lowered his gaze, distressed, but Lee touched his cheek. “No, keep looking at me.” So he went on, eyes locked on the captain’s as he sucked at his testicles, his own cock slowly stiffening. And he knew why, blast it: his body wanted to be pleasured in return. But _was_ it just his body, or all of him? He was afraid that what had been true for Park might be quite inaccurate for himself.

Lee stopped Jiyong before he could bring him too close, and tipped him onto his back. The man had had him in every conceivable position but this was still his favorite; he liked to see Jiyong’s face, and said so. Before long Jiyong was rocking down breathlessly on three of Lee’s fingers, quite unable to help himself as his skipper’s tongue swirled around his shaft.

“…You’re so sensitive,” Lee murmured, delighted as he always was, pressing his fingers up so Jiyong was momentarily blinded by the dart of ecstasy that radiated from that insignificant bump inside him; he pressed a hand across his mouth to try and quiet his own moan. “And your cock is perfect,” the man continued, knowing full well Jiyong had no breath to protest. “Very comfortable to suck.” Lee liked to press his point about how suited Jiyong was to being fucked by making compliments that reflected on his size; and having struggled with fellating the bigger man Jiyong had been rather inclined to dwell on the comparison. It was just one more piece of evidence that he wasn’t sufficiently _man_ – that all this had somehow been inevitable. He wasn’t allowed to dwell on it too long, however, because now Lee was teasing his hole again, fingers and mouth, fast and wickedly accurate until Jiyong was shuddering with the rising tide that would end in his climax and could no longer control his cries. When Lee stopped and rose up to loom over him, grinning, Jiyong wanted to punch him – he needed to finish, to get his brain back!

“Thought you didn’t like it,” Lee reminded him, chuckling to himself. Jiyong growled through his teeth, thoroughly antagonized, and tipped his head back to clear his airway and slow his panting. He didn’t like it, he didn’t! But right this second he _wanted_ it. He squirmed in a way that must look like an invitation. “If you want something,” said Lee, mouth brushing his ear – Jiyong wanted to swat him off like a fly – “ask for it. I’m a generous man.” Jiyong sealed his lips resolutely, made the mistake of glancing down and seeing the thick curve of Lee’s erection between the frame of his own spread legs.

“…I want it,” he ground out through numb lips – how could this man be so cruel? The chill of his resentment was almost equal to the heat of his desire. But not quite. “ _Please_ , I want your cock…!” Lee looked positively thrilled; without any more teasing he took Jiyong’s hips in a tight grip and entered him.

Jiyong heard himself let out a heartfelt groan at the sublime feeling of being filled as Lee drove into him in one plunge before drawing back and positioning Jiyong to aim at that spot over and over again, bringing all his concentration to bear on making the younger man orgasm. Jiyong gripped the expensive bedcovers and held on for dear life as Lee pistoned up into him, not even touching his cock – it wasn’t needed. He’d been so close anyway and the man wasn’t playing about: five, ten strokes and Jiyong was done.

“…You make the prettiest face when the moment comes,” Lee observed while Jiyong’s chest heaved and his legs trembled in the older man’s grip. Jiyong stifled a sob, on his way down; that was the last thing he needed to hear right now. Lee pulled out and waited a little, regulating his own breathing. Once Jiyong had wilted and was lying there boneless and relaxed he slipped his prick back in and began to move again, the way he especially liked to, slow, shallow thrusts he could maintain for a long time. Jiyong sucked in a breath and made a quiet complaining noise, over-sensitive everywhere; but he knew the drill now, and he knew how this would go.

Lee fucked him gently, peering down at him but mercifully not speaking much; Jiyong sensed he was listening to the obscene noises their bodies made together. Instead of feeling furious, times like this made Jiyong feel sad as he reflected on his shameless actions just past and what he must look like now, so thoroughly spent and debauched. He’d be railing to himself about it later, of course; but for as long as thirty minutes he would simply lie there, docile and available, his penis curled soft against his belly while his seed dried on his skin. Sometimes he cried. Sometimes his young man’s body decided it had had enough of a rest and he would get hard again; sometimes not. Either way, eventually Lee’s momentum would build. It was climbing now, raising speed, and Lee shifted every few strokes to brush Jiyong’s hot-spot. Jiyong gulped, nostrils flaring as the irrepressible sensation hit him once more; he wasn’t erect but it still felt good, and a plaintive moan escaped him that Lee was unfortunately not far gone enough to overlook.

“Nearly…there, my love,” he muttered. Jiyong let his head fall back and nodded quickly, Lee sinking further into him. As the pace and roughness increased he cried out, willing it to be quick so he wouldn’t have to go through the trial of coming again. Encouraged, Lee took his thighs in a bruising grip and pushed his legs back towards his head, moving with them so his face was hovering over Jiyong’s as they rutted together. Jiyong turned his head away until Lee smacked his cheek; as soon as he moved it back the captain kissed him. It was nothing like the way Choi had kissed him: this was entirely about lust, and Jiyong let him do it, his hands scrabbling for Lee’s buttocks so he could drag him deeper, angling his own hips to feel that sweet stabbing ache. Another thirty seconds of frantic fucking and Lee found his release, collapsing on top of him and waiting as long as he comfortably could to pull out. Jiyong still wasn’t hard, but as he felt the evidence of Lee’s triumph seep out of him it was almost as if he had come again too.

“…Please,” he said in a small voice, “I can’t breathe.” Lee rolled off obligingly and took him in his arms.

“Magnificent,” he told Jiyong, puffing. “You might be made for me! You _have_ to stay and sign on again – come on, say yes.” Feeling limp and spineless, Jiyong turned away. He didn’t want to do this; his disgust for Lee and for himself now it was over felt deep enough to drown in. But with the way he had become – a licentious, rotten creature – was there any decent place left in the world for him?

* * *

Agreeing to spend the night at his captain’s house of course put Jiyong at the mercy of Lee’s other whims. The most uncomfortable of these was a small but formal welcome-home dinner, hosted by Lee’s sister. The blushes of the maids who served them made it clear to Jiyong that one of them at least had overheard what had happened in Lee’s bedchamber. He watched them spiritlessly, their round faces and pretty hanbok, and didn’t know whether to be terrified that he felt no desire for them – another piece of evidence that Park didn’t know what he was talking about – or envy that they worked for a man who seemed to want them just as little. What a peaceful household it must be.

Lee talked a lot, happy to be home for this brief space of time. Jiyong spoke when directly addressed, which seemed to be Lee’s sister’s resolve, too. She knew – of course she knew. He still couldn’t look at her.

“Jiyong’s one of my likeliest boys,” Lee was saying in between dropping meat into his mouth. “Thoroughly skilled. And perhaps he’ll grow a bit yet; but if he doesn’t, well, he’ll be a good navigator all the same.” Jiyong had rarely had the chance to touch fresh meat in his life, and now he was wasting it; he had never been less hungry. He flinched with surprise as Lee’s hand came to rest on his head, a heavy, approving touch. Without intending to he glanced up and met the gaze of Lee’s sister; the skipper had resumed eating, addressing himself with little compliments to his favorite dishes, so there was nothing to stop her staring right at him. She didn’t drop her lashes, and Jiyong couldn’t; he was dumbfounded by what he saw there. Perplexingly and unmistakably, she felt _sorry_ for him: her gaze was full of sympathy, regret, the thin hand holding her chopsticks shaking. She set it in her lap and finally looked away, but Jiyong sat silent for the rest of supper, wondering if maybe, by some miracle, none of this was his fault after all.

By the end of the meal – possibly helped along by two cups of fruit liquor, drinking one for every four of his captain’s – his brain had gone to work and his common sense, amazed at being unshackled after so long, had reminded him of two things: first, that he hadn’t asked for any of this. More than that, he had said _no_ , so clearly and repeatedly there could be no mistake; what happened after that was merely his stupid body talking. Second, every sober moment that he wasn’t being fucked he hated Lee. Were those the sensations of a perverse mind? He couldn’t tell; but that woman had looked at him so kindly, with such pathos, whereas her glances at her brother… Did she see more clearly than him? Did Park? It was a momentous idea to mull over.

He was mulling it now, his arm in Lee’s as they strolled along by the nighttime harbor. It was late – Lee had drunk more after they retired to his study and had made Jiyong join him in a limited capacity, feeling frisky enough at the end to lay the boy down on the floor and come in his mouth. This time Jiyong had felt nothing but repulsion, Lee hadn’t caressed him or fondled him and so he was able to keep his mind rational: and what was becoming clear to him was that being manhandled into feeling pleasure might not truly be enjoyment, and that something he had no choice in couldn’t fully be called complicity.

“Just a bit further,” said Lee in a slight slur, leaning comfortably on Jiyong; he obviously liked his drink by land. “Let’s test your stargazing skills.” Jiyong let himself be guided, still thinking. The harbor was never really still, people worked all hours, but it was quiet by the line of trees and he found it easy to nurse the flame of indignation Lee’s sister had kindled in him. They walked beyond the main wharves and began to climb the rocky hillside that led out into the bay. “I’m serious about training you for an officer, y’know,” Lee told him, puffing a little. “You have a quick mind hidden in that china doll head.” The flame inside Jiyong licked higher as Lee paused to kiss his hair. “Just stay with me; let me have you when and how I want you, and later if you grow up a bit you can work under me like a man.”

“Like Park?” said Jiyong softly. Lee chortled.

“Like Park.” He assisted Jiyong up a difficult rock with a squeeze of his behind. “Though he was never half as lovely as you; I think I’ll be happy keeping you in luxury a long time before you need to do any _real_ work.”

“…You don’t think what I do for you is real work?”

“What we do together is about mutual gratification, as you know very well.” Lee hauled himself to the tip of the high promontory and sighed happily at the sight of the sea laid out ahead of them, the moon reflected in its ripples. “You feel it so deliciously now; you can play quite the little slut when you let yourself go.” Beside him Jiyong felt himself shiver in anger, the first pure, uncomplicated feeling he had had in a long time. “…But we’re not here to sweet-talk,” said Lee, and pointed up at the night sky. “Now, can you tell me which stars make up the Herdsman?” Jiyong guessed wrongly; Lee clicked his tongue and identified the constellation. “What about the Weaver?” He got that one wrong too; but then he had more important things to think of. “Honestly, Jiyong, we looked at these on the map only this week.”

“They look different from here, sir.” Lee sighed, pivoted Jiyong so he was facing a different bit of the sky, and gave him another star to find. Jiyong was strongly aware of their proximity to the edge of the promontory, which didn’t help his concentration; neither did Lee.

“This is important, Jiyong; how will you know where you are without the stars? You’ll have to graduate from being a kept boy one day, and then you’ll need real skills.”

“I know, sir.”

“Unless,” said Lee speculatively, “you don’t _want_ to stop.” Jiyong bristled at the insinuation. “Perhaps you’d like to be my private pet your entire youth.” Lee gave him a tipsy smile at this idea and began to elaborate on the fantasy. “If I asked you, would you? I’d stop making you take lessons, you wouldn’t have to do galley duty or pack seal skins; I’d keep you in my cabin all season, naked, a life of idleness; I’d only let you out to sun yourself, someplace everyone could look at you and see how fortunate I am. The Japanese have some interesting toys we could try – they’d ensure you’re always stretched and ready. And when I came in from my work you’d be waiting eagerly, spread out and prepared for me.”

“No thank you, sir!” exclaimed Jiyong, shaken by a sudden memory of being shackled to Inoue’s bed, hour after hour with the smell of fish and strange men’s voices behind him. He felt his muscles tense.

“Hmm. It’d be much more fun than teaching you astronomy. Here.” Lee pressed down on Jiyong’s shoulders, forcing him to his knees on the hard rock. “Take off your clothes; show me how you’d look.” Jiyong shook his head; he had sunk pretty low, but not so much that he’d strip down and suck Lee’s cock like a slave in the open air. “Come on,” urged Lee. “There’s no-one here, and it’s a lovely night; show me that ecstatic face in the moonlight.” He stepped forward, large hand outstretched.

What happened next was not something Jiyong had ever been able to put together in his mind. With a growl of protest he started up, springing off his haunches to stop Lee in his tracks and draw the line, to prove he wasn’t entirely a wanton, submissive pet: that he had learned something today, something close to a revelation. And all of that did happen – but somehow his hands on the older man’s chest extended in a hard push, the fire within him roaring up like the steamer’s engine, converting itself into raw strength. And suddenly Lee was tilting back, too far back to right himself: his arms reached out and he was falling, with just a breathless sound of disbelief. Jiyong saw him strike an outcropping on the sloping cliff, and then with a distant crunch he landed.

Jiyong knelt there at the top of the bay, shaking hands clapped across his mouth. The fire within him had gone out at the instant of Lee’s impact, to be replaced with shudders as Jiyong realized to his terror that he really was _dead_. He didn’t know what to do. Should he tell somebody? Confess he had done it, say it was an accident? _Was_ it? He couldn’t say, and he couldn’t move. As the moon began to dip down in the sky, however, something began to happen: he began to feel cold. It wasn’t just his body; in fact when he became aware of it he found his trembling had stopped. Rather, it felt like a _ball_ of cold, very like the moon itself. It settled in his belly, quelling the embers of nausea and guilt that had been smoldering there. And it felt good. Slowly and stiffly Jiyong got to his feet, looked down once more at Lee’s body, and walked away over the empty hillside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Jiyong slowly figures out the advantages of being proactive, and at last snaps out of this long-ass flashback :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jiyong learns a few useful life skills before returning to the present and a very concerned Seunghyun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this chapter makes up for some of the abject misery of the previous installments!

Jiyong’s instincts, raw and fraying within that ball of cold, screamed at him to never go to sea again. He was afraid that if he got trapped one more time, if he met another Lee and was forced to feel more of that unwanted pleasure, his great revelation that he was not to blame would shatter. Luckily for him that dreamlike chill propelled him from the site of the accident – or the scene of his crime – straight toward the docks, and when the ferryboat left at first light he was on it. Later on he’d be vaguely sorry he hadn’t been able to say farewell to Taesu, that adorable idiot, but in the circumstances he thanked his lucky stars he _hadn’t_ run into any of the Nancho’s crew. He had his knife, his pay, and the clothes on his back; it was enough to get him out of Busan. That was what the newly-woken part of himself had told him, a cool voice in his head: _leave town. Now_.

The ferry went as far as the port nearest Ulsan, and Jiyong took it all the way. Once there he rented a small room at an inn on the waterfront – his wages had indeed been generous – and collapsed on the worn bedding. He spent the rest of his waking hours indulging in regret, fright, indecision as to what he should do now: go inland and try to…what? Be a peasant for some yangban landowner? He had no shore-going skills, and his petite frame – seemingly the cause of his life’s woes – would make him a poor field laborer. Go home? Not while his father was alive; doubly so now the bastard had been evangelized. Or return to the sea? He knew what would happen if he did; but it was also the only arena in which he could see himself rising – and besides, there was Choi.

Jiyong fell asleep more distressed and uncertain than ever. As his body rested and regained its strength, however, that odd and pleasing chill seeped into him once more. He’d been afraid he would dream about Lee, of what he had done to Jiyong and how Jiyong had ended him. Instead he dreamed of Choi, of how amazed he would be that his ‘precious’ little brother had killed a man. Jiyong’s mind conjured the older boy’s face the night he had sliced open his cheek: disbelieving and devastated – the same dream he always had. Was that what he would have looked like if he’d seen Jiyong kill Lee? As he watched, the dream-Choi broke into a grin.

 _He hurt you_ , said Choi, standing beside him on the rocky promontory. _You did right. He was lucky you didn’t do worse_.

Jiyong woke with a start, scar throbbing the way it always did when he dreamed of him. He reached for the cold feeling of acceptance he had found on the clifftop and clung to it; but he still didn’t know what to do.

Lee’s warped generosity meant Jiyong could afford to dally and be indecisive for a while. He stayed at the inn, diligently eating and sleeping: his cool new self told him that whatever path he took he might as well go into it at full strength. During the day he would wander around the port, getting to know the ships and the likelihood of employment. He walked away from the coast too, going up to survey the farmland and the people who worked it; it didn’t look appealing, though practically speaking it had safety going for it: it was harder to get yourself trapped on dry land.

In the evenings he frequented the various dockside jumak, a cap pulled over his eyes so no-one noticed his unlucky face. Once he overheard mention that a prominent shipowner in Busan had died under mysterious circumstances; the police were looking into it. Jiyong gulped, glad he’d had the presence of mind to run; he wondered how long it would be before he dared go back. He was nursing a glass of soju and wondering what Park and the others were thinking about Lee’s death when a man approached him. Obviously a sailor, obviously drunk. Jiyong tried to look as frigid and unpleasant as possible, but it seemed to have the opposite effect when the bearded seaman said:

“Kwon Jiyong! It _is_ you – wasn’t sure ‘til I saw that sour mug up close.” The younger man stared at him blankly; had they sailed together? Had he been a decent shipmate or one of the scum who had turned a blind eye to his rapist superiors? “Don’t remember me?” The sailor took a seat without asking. “Guess we’re both a long way from home.” Then it clicked: he was from Ulleungdo. They had never really spoken, of course – the man had probably yelled at Jiyong and Choi to get off the damn boat a few times – but behind the hair his face was familiar, though perhaps it was just a common family visage: there were only a few clans in the village and it was easy to tell who came from which.

“What are _you_ doing here?” asked Jiyong, acknowledging the acquaintance but not willing to try and be friendly.

“You’ve not changed much,” replied the sailor. He removed a pipe from his pocket and filled it; Jiyong wrinkled his nose. “Working, of course: on the tuna run ‘til my whaler’s ready to put to sea again.”

“ _Whaling_?” Jiyong was surprised out of his aloofness.

“Sure, on the Japanese station. Maybe it’s rude to say, but I’m a bit more ambitious than the lads who spend their lives hugging the island.” Jiyong huffed but couldn’t disagree with the sentiment. “You too, I s’pose,” acknowledged the seaman. “And I’ll tell you who else – that brother of yours.” Jiyong shot up in his seat, hackles raised at the mention of Choi as a member of his family; but he found himself on fire to know all the same.

“Where?!”

“Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you,” said the man with what he probably thought was charm. Jiyong exhaled short-temperedly but waved one of the busy jumo over. Once she had brought his drink the sailor – Jiyong didn’t ask his name – told him. “Saw him a couple of seasons ago in the North Pacific. We picked up a boat from one of the American ships – it’d been dragged miles by a big ol’ bull and they’d lost it – and lo and behold there he was! Reckon he’s grown up a lot: speaking their language and everything. He said he was making up his mind between whaling and sealing. I guess the seals are easier money so maybe he’ll go into that; less exciting, though. The soft option, you might say.” Jiyong listened, eyes wide; he could just imagine it, dammit, Choi going head to head with one of the biggest creatures in creation.

“Have you seen him since?”

“Nah, but I s’pose he’s with the Yanks still. Said he was aiming for a mate’s berth and I’ll bet he got it – he always looked like the type to make things go his way.”

“Hmph.” Jiyong’s lips thinned. Of course things were going Choi’s way: he would battle the world until it backed down and let him succeed. The only time he had failed was with his insulting offer of ‘protection’ – dammit, how could Jiyong give up and prove he’d been right all along?! This was a sign, he told himself with a feeling of dread but also a hard sense of resolution: he would go back to sea, and whatever happened he would find a way through his debilitating disadvantages – and he would succeed. He’d be rich but not corrupt like Lee, strong but not a beast like Inoue. Most importantly, he would beat Choi. He leaned his chin in his palm and gave his hometown companion the barest hint of a smile. “Say, does your ship have any berths going? I come with recommendations.” The sailor looked surprised, but clinked his cup against Jiyong’s.

“Let’s go ask the skipper – gotta help out one of my own.” Jiyong nodded slowly; he didn’t like the sensation of accepting assistance, but perhaps it was time to change his outlook. Perhaps he should cultivate all the help he could get – just so long as it came without strings attached.

* * *

Jiyong’s return to the ocean followed a depressingly similar pattern to the last time. The tuna ship was Japanese but nothing notable happened to him on it until the cook got a three-hundred-pound fish dropped on him by mistake, and was put out of commission for a week with a back injury. It then fell upon Jiyong to take over as cook, and though he certainly didn’t garner much praise he did an acceptable job. He spent the winter brushing up his language skills and trying to pretend he was a normal person to his good-natured acquaintance, who made an effort to bring him into the circle of Korean hands. Jiyong felt very awkward but was grateful he had to deal with nothing worse.

That spring he chose to avoid Busan and made the long voyage up to Chelumpo, the port that serviced Seoul. It looked much like any other and he didn’t have time to venture into the capital, though the variety of people on the waterfront was startling and rather overwhelming: Koreans from all over, many Japanese – they owned a good deal of the trade these days – even some Europeans, and missionaries from a country called Australia he had never seen on a map. It was Jiyong’s first occasion to see a white man up close and he found them unnecessarily tall – he didn’t need to feel any more puny. He wondered if Seunghyun thought it hard to work with them, though to be frank it was more likely the other way around. Once or twice one of them tried to speak to him, beckoning to him and calling out in an alien language; he didn’t understand it but he was damn sure he knew what they were after, and avoided them.

He found another job on a sealer – ship’s boy again. This time he spent the days before they sailed watching the Japanese officers, tailing them to see where they went and what kind of men they were. He slung his hammock with deep forebodings, but they turned out to be unfounded. True, one or two of the ordinary sailors made a pass at him a couple of months out, once they’d had to make do with their own company so long even a boy looked good. Each time Jiyong whipped out the knife and they retreated, hands up and laughing, and didn’t trouble him again; the encounters resurrected his nightmares but at least his body was safe.

Jiyong learned many practical skills that summer; the ship was a schooner, an old breed, but by pitching in he was able to study the finer points of sailing a large vessel. He even had a chance to steer a boat once or twice, setting his jaw and bringing it back safe as a summer storm was blowing in. He had no opportunity to improve his navigation – this captain barely knew he was alive, and he was thankful for it – but he watched the stars, picking out the constellations and thinking of Lee. The further away he got from what he had done the less it troubled him; in fact the memory had begun to feel almost…righteous.

If the good times repeated themselves, of course the bad ones did too. This time it wasn’t a superior, or some man taking advantage of whatever was available to him at sea, and perhaps that was why he was caught off guard. Jiyong had returned to Chelumpo with his pay and a season’s worth of experience. The cook, who was crabby but not a bad person, took him drinking so he could complain about going home to his wife – so many men took to sealing and whaling as an escape from shore! Jiyong listened because the man had paid for his lunch, then said his farewells when the cook grudgingly rolled out of the jumak to begin his long journey home.

Feeling tipsy from the soju and wobbly from finding his land-legs, Jiyong made his way to a cheap jjimjilbang for his first real bath in months. He hung his money round his neck in a waxed pouch – like most common sailors he was too itinerant and poor to think of a bank account – and washed himself down with pleasure, sinking into the hot water with a groan. After a while he began to glance covertly at the other customers, trying to remember what his own limbs had looked like last year and debating whether he had grown any bigger. The comparison was not encouraging, and he sighed, leaning his head back against the stone. He felt giddy when he got out – shouldn’t have gone in drunk. And that was when it happened, as he stepped through the steam and into a quiet alcove to take a breath. As he inhaled he caught sight of another naked silhouette looming through the steam, and the next moment a hand was across his mouth, the other grabbing his throat. Jiyong dug his nails into the dimly-seen appendages and kicked out but the man didn’t let go.

“You a pro?” inquired a voice near his ear. Jiyong shook his head furiously, the cords of his money pouch tight and cutting around his neck. “Saw you looking at me,” the man told him before taking him by the hair and shoving him to his knees. “You _oughta_ go pro,” he said. “You’ve got a nice little body – uh-uh, don’t yell; you want half the bathhouse joining in?” Jiyong did not want that, but wasn’t sure he could help himself. He took a ragged breath – and as he did so the chill settled over him and to his own surprise he subsided. Pleased, his attacker fumbled for his jaw, prising his mouth open and beginning to fuck him. Jiyong tried not to make a sound, though it hurt. He hadn’t expected it to _happen_ here! As he choked he felt the cool ball in his stomach fracture at the realization he would never be safe anywhere, that there could be men like this wherever he went. It was painful, that splintering; but what he was left with was a bellyful of sharpness – and he was still ice cold.

The assault didn’t take long; the bastard was just like Inoue. But when he gripped Jiyong’s arm and drew him up Jiyong didn’t tremble, merely wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tried to steady his breathing.

“Wanna come with me?” said the blurry outline. “I’ll pay if you let me use your arse.”

“…All right,” agreed Jiyong, his voice weak and hoarse but perfectly level. “Let me get dressed.”

The man – in his forties, obviously a nautical type but running to heaviness, his topknot and beard turning gray – chose a deserted alley between two stores. A cheapskate: couldn’t even take him to a room. The whole place smelled of sawdust and fish. It was quiet and dark under the overhanging roofs, though the bustle from the main street came to them clearly. Jiyong had no objections; he was thinking of Lee, of Inoue and a particular flash of memory. He allowed his ‘customer’ to unfasten his trousers and yank one leg loose, wet fingers running up his bare thigh before probing roughly between his buttocks. Jiyong stripped his own shirt off, tossing it aside, and was given a lustful look at this demonstration of eagerness. Pursing his lips Jiyong kept silent as the man scooped him up easily and pushed him against the alley wall, winding the boy’s legs around his waist while he yanked open his own trousers.

“Go ahead,” said Jiyong distantly. The man spat in his hand again, scrabbled between his thighs, and Jiyong felt the blunt head of his cock trying to find entry. He tipped his head back against the wood and slipped his hand in his pocket, his first long-ago lesson on the Rina coming back to him; for a long moment he couldn’t find it, distracted by the discomfort – then he had it safe in his palm and his arms were sliding around the sailor’s back. He took a deep breath.

“…Ugh,” said the man quietly. Jiyong pursed his lips in concentration and dragged his pocket-knife from where he had stabbed it into his attacker’s neck around the line of his broad throat; there was more resistance than he’d thought and he had to really use his muscles to keep the blade sunk deep. The man was gurgling and spluttering, disgusting; Jiyong hoped it wasn’t loud enough to be heard on the main street. He dropped back to the ground and tried to ease the quivering body down, but his prey was too heavy and fell to the dirt with a thud, spasming just like a tuna as he bled out. Jiyong watched him, almost shocked that a man could die as easily as a fish.

Before he had stopped twitching Jiyong was digging in the man’s pack, using his clothing to scrub the blood off his own face and chest before it could dry; he would slink down to the water and wash himself properly there – the ocean could cleanse anything. He tugged his shirt back on, fastened his trousers and with minimum distaste tucked the man’s prick back into his own – his hands were more or less steady. After a moment’s thought he went through the warm corpse’s pockets to find his valuables. If the police thought this was a murder for money it would seem much more commonplace. Staring down at the body as his breathing returned to normal he became aware of a cool glow of joy, of _relief_ : there was nothing he could do to resist a grown man and he couldn’t win in an all-out fight afterwards, not even to salvage his dignity. But he could do _this_.

He walked away in the opposite direction to the main street, and from there to safety. Beyond some lingering disgust at the rape he felt almost nothing now, just a small, icy spike of satisfaction: that he had proved to at least one man he was not weak.

* * *

Thus began Jiyong’s new outlook on life, and the longer he kept at it the more he felt this was the healthiest his mind had been ever since Choi left home. It took over a year to get used to it, this cold and calculating new mode: he had deep-seated fears to repress, instincts to rein in and nightmares that wouldn’t subside. He wasn’t quite sure if he felt _proud_ of what he was becoming; but he was certainly relieved.

Jiyong aimed for the same types of ship as Choi, the long killing voyages with little shore time, and so of course he encountered the same opportunistic type of man he had before. Having learned that it made small odds whether he chose Korean sealers or Japanese he tended towards the latter; while he loathed them it was a fact that they had become the primary nautical and trade power, and if he wanted to learn the best and most modern skills they were the obvious choice. Added to that, though unvoiced, was Jiyong’s feeling that he would find it less troubling to punish a foreign interloper for abusing him; it was somehow less upsetting than when he was hurt by one of his own people.

Some voyages it happened, some it didn’t. Occasionally Jiyong could tell before they set sail, and would simply abandon his berth and leave town: the look in an officer’s eye, a hunter too fond of inviting him to drink. Often he had no inkling until the familiar sensation of danger overtook him miles out to sea and he found himself bent over a locker with a man between his thighs. If he could make it stop, he would – on occasion the threat of the knife worked. If he couldn’t, he would endure it; the ice inside him was a tremendous help, even better than pain. Best of all was silently nursing the knowledge of what he would do when the voyage was over. He spent long hours fantasizing, planning how he might succeed; there were too many factors to map his vengeance out properly, of course, but he had the comfort of knowing it would happen somehow or other. The day the ship paid off was generally the best, when the trading was done and even the officers got drunk ashore. There were so many accidents an intoxicated man could stumble into – and if Jiyong couldn’t arrange one there was always the blade.

If there was one thing Jiyong learned it was that it was useless to expect protection, even had he wanted it. On a Japanese ship it was every Korean for himself; and regardless of nationality a real man was supposed to deal with his own problems. Even when he eventually achieved a step up in rank – hired as a sailor and boat steerer thanks to his accumulated knowledge – he found it no safer; it merely put him in the proximity of more men.

At first Jiyong had thought to ask for some discipline to be imposed, if it wasn’t the skipper abusing him but one of the mates or lower ranks; hadn’t he resolved to take any help he could get? He gave that up quickly, though; only one captain had ever put a stop to it – and even he seemed to blame Jiyong. It wasn’t out of a sense of human decency, either, but because the man was a newly-converted Christian who thought two men lying together was a sin. Jiyong reminded him that this time it was not two men: it was six. The rot in this particular ship had spread deep.

“I might have known it,” said the captain angrily, after informing Jiyong the entire hunters’ berth had been told off and that he’d be kept an eye on in future. “I thought when we took you on that your face would be trouble, even with that scar.” For a moment Jiyong gaped at him, outraged, his customary chill forgotten.

“…You think I wanted it? You think _I’m_ at fault?!” The captain glared at him, nostrils flaring. “Sir,” appended Jiyong.

“You must be more careful not to become a temptation: the serpent in the Garden.”

He could have killed the man right there. But Jiyong had learned self-control now, and he merely forced himself to freeze until the captain finished sermonizing: after all, he _had_ made the hunters stop. Jiyong got through the season unmolested after that; once they made landfall he had calmed down enough that he restrained himself to starting a rumor about the captain’s perverse sexual habits that was sure to reach the judgmental ears of his church. Later that captain was found in a dark street close to where the rent boys plied their trade, naked and apparently intoxicated – a shock to the local congregation. For the first time in a long time Jiyong smiled as he left town.

* * *

“Are you sure you can manage a steerer’s place?” asked his prospective new captain doubtfully. “It’s hard work in those rough seas.” Jiyong refrained from asking if the old man could manage to drag himself on deck every morning, and instead said yes, he could, and he’d done it the past two years.

“All right, lad,” replied the captain, with a glint in an otherwise mild eye. “I’m not slighting your manliness.” Jiyong gave him a tight smile: he was, but at least it seemed unconscious. The Soesae, like her captain, was a little elderly for a sealing steamer, and the makeup of its officers – he’d been watching them for a few days – gave it an air of docile adequacy. Jiyong wondered how that would affect the hunting; he decided that, having spent half the winter on his back, it was worth giving up the modern Japanese vessels for one peaceful trip. Captain Sun Jiha perused Jiyong’s list of previous ships one more time, then peered up to give him another going-over. Jiyong thought he was probably short-sighted. “Very well,” the white-haired skipper said finally, and gave the list back. “See the first mate to sign aboard; departure in two days.”

Jiyong bowed and pocketed his list with care. Only his captains ever saw it, and he never let them keep it. That wasn’t only because it was a bother to remember all the vessel names and write them out; if a widely-traveled and observant person took note of those ships, and just happened to put some of them together with sailors who had died on land soon after their voyages ended, he might come up with ideas. They were not ideas Jiyong wanted people to dwell on; he made a great effort to vary the ports he departed from and arrived at and he didn’t need anyone getting suspicious over abusive bastards who reaped what they sowed. But perhaps this would be one of the lucky trips – where the very best he could hope for was that he might be left unmolested to actually learn his trade.

Captain Sun was getting on in years and was most definitely short-sighted, but he wasn’t as feeble as he’d looked sitting down and was a perfectly competent skipper. He walked with a cane, though he insisted to Jiyong that it wasn’t the result of age so much as a whaling accident in his forties; that was why he’d turned to sealing – it was a good deal easier to stay alive. Jiyong hoped very much that Choi had also decided on sealing as his profession: he had been on one whaling voyage, and even though he didn’t go out in the boats he had felt one of the giant creatures bump the hull of the ship; the memory of its power was awe-inspiring. The captain also told Jiyong he had three children and seven grandchildren, and a good many more things his Number Five steerer had no need to know. This didn’t happen all at once, of course; and the process by which Jiyong came to be the recipient of all this knowledge was a turning point in his personal evolution. Before any of that, though, he had a few more shocks in store.

As a regular sailor Jiyong was now part of the watch system, on and off around the clock. There was always some mending to do, or cleaning or scraping, in addition to handling the ship and preparing for the hunt. Jiyong ended up doing more maintenance than most, ever since the engineer had squeezed his arm, laughed at him, and rejected him for shoveling duty. It wasn’t often that the different watches spent time together, at least before they reached the Bering Sea. It took several days, therefore, for Jiyong to realize to his dismay that the Number Two boat-puller had been a sailor on the Nancho – and that he recognized him.

“Hey, weren’t you ship’s boy on the Nancho?” the big man asked, sliding his fishcakes and kimchi along the bench to sit next to Jiyong, who stopped eating and swallowed uncomfortably. It was a Sunday, and the captain being a Christian – of a very laid-back sort – meant they got a bit of rest with both watches off together. “The, er, skipper’s boy?” Jiyong looked down into his bowl and nodded, expecting a grin or some bawdy joke. Instead the sailor gave him a nod in return.

“Choi Sangwoo,” he said. Jiyong mumbled something but didn’t want to introduce himself yet – he wanted to hear what the man knew. “Glad you found another berth – I mean, you heard about Captain Lee, right?”

“…I heard.” Jiyong tried very hard to sound regretful and not venomous as he said it. Sangwoo sighed.

“We were pretty cut up about it; she was a good ship. Too bad you didn’t have time to get to really know her. I don’t reckon we’ll find a tight group like that again.”

“What actually happened?” ventured Jiyong cautiously. “I was in a hurry to…uh, visit my girl, so I’d already left town.” The lie was so enormous he felt his ears turn red. He hadn’t been back to Busan since Lee’s death, hadn’t dared in case they were looking for him; he didn’t think he’d left any identifying marks on the body but his pack of spare clothes had been in Lee’s house – and there had been people in that house who’d known they left it together.

“Skipper fell off the headland. Crushed his spine,” said Sangwoo dolefully. “He was almost washed out to sea! Good job some kids in a boat found the body.” Jiyong bit his lip: bad luck. “There was an investigation after but they figured it out pretty quick.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, his sister and his servants testified: he’d been drinking heavily.” Sangwoo shrugged. “Course he had, we’d spent four months at sea. _I_ was getting hammered, weren’t you?”

“Mm-hm.”

“So, there you have it: he was intoxicated, went out for a moonlit walk – she told him not to, poor thing, all alone in that big house now – and missed his footing.”

Jiyong shook his head slowly, amazed at what the women had done. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t so astonishing: he remembered vividly the look that thin lady had given him, the expression that had woken him from his self-loathing; and the look she had given her brother. Jiyong knew what it was to despise someone you had once been close to – had she felt the same? Was that why she had lied for him? Or maybe she simply wanted to live the rest of her life in peace without the trouble of a murder investigation. Either way, Jiyong owed her: she could just as easily have ended him.

“What happened to the Nancho?” he asked, after a somber silence. Sangwoo resumed eating.

“Dunno. Maybe someone’ll buy her, but won’t be the same; who wants to sail in her now? Her community’s gone with the skipper.”

“I suppose.” Jiyong fiddled with his chopsticks, no longer so worried that Sangwoo knew what he’d been to Lee. This was the best news he’d had in years: the city and its ships were open to him once more.

* * *

“Kwon Jiyong,” came Captain Sun’s creaky voice as Jiyong was trotting through the passage for his leather palm and canvas-needle – the rarely-used foresail needed strengthening after their latest blow. He stopped and backtracked until he reached the location of the voice, a cabin that was used as either storage or sick bay as required. He wondered what he wanted; the skipper was civil to everyone but didn’t address him directly very often.

“Sir?” Sun was holding a glass bottle up to the lamp and squinting at the label.

“Read this for me, will you, lad?” Cautiously Jiyong stepped inside and took the bottle: the handwritten label wasn’t very clear but it looked like a herbal tincture for indigestion. He read it out. “That shark the starboard watch caught last night, no doubt,” the captain said ruefully. “And I used to have a stomach like iron!” He patted at his loose pockets, grumbling to himself; Jiyong guessed what he was after and went to the open locker, producing a spoon from the medicine chest.

“Here, sir.”

“Thanks.” Sun tucked his cane under his arm, held his nose and took two doses, grimacing. “And where were you rushing off to?”

“Foresail needs patching, sir,” said Jiyong automatically.

“Always busy with something, aren’t you; always scurrying about making yourself useful.” Jiyong gave his head a wry shake.

“Not really, sir. I suppose you just see me more often because I don’t do the boiler room shifts.”

“Oh? Why not?” Like all laid-back and competent captains Sun left the daily management of his ship to his first mate.

“Engineer says I’m no use,” mumbled Jiyong, doing his best not to scowl at his employer. He hoped Sun wouldn’t remember that he’d been doubtful from the start of the younger man’s physical prowess. The skipper looked him up and down.

“Maybe he’s right. Still, you’re a good boy.” There was a moment of silence, another appraisal. Sun coughed awkwardly – possibly that fetid-smelling medicine, though Jiyong had a sinking suspicion that was not it at all. “Well. Off you run.”

Jiyong left at a jog as suggested, his jaw suddenly tight: because in his captain’s consoling tone and lingering look he felt the beginnings of a familiar foreboding awaken, even if Sun didn’t yet know it himself. And after this it could only be a matter of time.

It started slowly, a new experience for Jiyong, though he could see where it was heading. The old man would saunter up on deck in fine weather and stand watching his crew benignly; he used the cane to clamber out of the hatch but after that his balance was effortless, a man who had spent his entire life at sea. Jiyong noticed he was careful to chat a bit with the hands, giving them advice, asking how they were getting along. But eventually he would beckon Jiyong to sit beside him on the bridge for a few minutes, or wander over to teach him something about the ship or tell him where they were. Their conversations would have felt almost normal if it wasn’t for Jiyong’s increasingly accurate intuition on the unfortunate subject of desire.

“Got my battle wound chasing a right-whale,” Sun told him proudly. “A monstrous big cow, she sank our boat – caught me with her flukes and smashed all the bones in my calf. Lucky my mates held me to the wreckage ‘til we were rescued. Didn’t our skipper curse us for losing her!” he said with a nostalgic laugh. “How about that scar of yours, lad?”

“Oh.” Jiyong felt himself go pale, a hangover from his dreams of Choi. “Uh…piece of wire rigging snapped during a blow and cut my face open, sir.” Sun was gazing at his profile with what most people would take to be interest in his story. And it _was_ interest; just not in what he was saying. “I was worried for a while,” Jiyong added quietly, to make sure he wasn’t mistaken. “Thought I might not find a girl, that it’d spoil my face. Do you think it does, sir?” The skipper frowned. He coughed, and after a minute said:

“…No, my boy. I can’t say that it does.” Jiyong nodded gloomily. He watched Sun’s left hand – the right gripped tight to his cane – hover uncertainly between them for a second, before the captain laid it on Jiyong’s leg and used it as leverage to push himself to his feet. “I’d better be off,” he said, and clunked away. Jiyong pressed his lips together, his thigh cold and stiff, an unmistakable signal. He didn’t know where it would happen or how long it would take for Sun to let go his religious morals enough to jump him; but it couldn’t be far off now.

* * *

Three days later they were cruising under the South coast of Hokkaido, local craft circling them and offering to sell them nets of delicious crab. It was sunny, with a blustery wind that had not yet lost the winter chill; but Sunday was washing day, so wind or rain regardless the cook and second mate forced everyone on deck to do laundry and clean themselves. It was preferable to the entire crew getting lice. Still, Jiyong hated the practice, at least ‘til midsummer; his body as well as his mind tended towards the glacial. He’d just hung his shirt and trousers to dry on one of the lines rigged for the purpose, and was shaking his wet hair out, teeth chattering, one pale body in a crowd of naked men. In that crowd he sensed two of the hunters giving him covert looks, talking quietly to each other. Jiyong had had his eye on them for a few days now: he knew those expressions and he could be in for some unpleasant meetings if he didn’t try to nip it in the bud right away. Hurriedly he grabbed his heavy wool sweater and tugged it over his head; as his face emerged from the high turtle-neck he saw the captain sunning himself on the bridge above them. The old man was wrapped up warm as toast – the ship’s boy did his laundry and filled his bath – and was staring down at Jiyong as if hypnotized.

“Can I use your soap?!” bellowed Sangwoo as he dashed across the deck, muscular frame bare as the day he was born and covered in goosebumps, heedless of his prick bouncing about all over.

“…Sure.” Jiyong pushed the tub at him. Sun hadn’t even spared a look for the handsome sailor, his gaze fixed in befuddlement on Jiyong’s legs as he tugged the sweater down his thighs and hurried below: that brought the total to three, and one of them was bound to make a move. Soon. If he didn’t do something the whole despicable business would begin again, and he didn’t want it to. He wanted a rest.

Jiyong stood in the gently vibrating corridor, bare feet cold against the metal. It was never really silent, thanks to the engine, but he’d picked his moment so the watch above were settled on deck while the men they had relieved would be sound asleep. For several minutes he lingered there in the dark, teeth sunk in his bottom lip, wondering if he should do this. The cold and calculating part of him said yes; the rest of him, the parts that remembered how awful it made him feel, had their doubts. The cold won out: he raised his hand and knocked firmly at the captain’s door.

“…Yes?” came Sun’s croaky voice after a pause; the door creaked open. “Kwon Jiyong. What is it, has there been an accident? Man overboard?!”

“No, sir,” said Jiyong softly. “Can I come in for a minute?” The skipper gave him a startled look at that, then nodded.

“What is it, boy? Did…” The old man swallowed. “Did something happen?” Jiyong knew instantly from the tone what Sun was imagining. Perhaps he’d also noticed the hunters’ gazes: he’d been thinking of it, picturing it. But Jiyong had known that already.

“No. Not yet.” Jiyong swung the heavy door closed behind him. Sun had retreated and was easing himself into his desk chair with the help of his cane; he looked rather shaken. Had he imagined something like this, too, Jiyong alone with him in the dark? The younger man took a step forward into the small circle of lamplight. He quickly unfastened the laces of his trousers and let them fall to the floor, leaving only the worn fabric of his shirt brushing his thighs. Sun’s eyes widened so much he almost looked frightened; at that Jiyong felt a cool wave of surety wash through him and the panicked voice in his hindbrain went quiet.

“Jiyong…” said Sun, his voice creaky. His battered hand closed hard on the arm of his chair.

“If you want to, sir,” Jiyong told him, widening his stance a little to make himself appear more confident while displaying the line of his legs, “you can have me.”

“…What’s that?”

“You’ve been looking at me, sir.” Jiyong gave him a resigned little smile. “I know how it goes. So why not make it less effort for both of us?”

“I assure you, I wasn’t thinking of-” Sun’s expression had turned mortified.

“You were. I don’t mind.” Another step forward, almost within the skipper’s reach. Moving calmly Jiyong leaned down and with some difficulty took the cane from Sun’s right hand; it was heavier than he’d thought. He set it aside and clasped the man’s wrist, drawing it gently up the inside of his bare thigh. Sun was scarcely touching the skin but Jiyong felt his fingers quiver; his own skin shivered, unwanted memories of being touched in the past. But this was different, Jiyong reminded himself: he had _chosen_ it. He’d preempted the inevitable assault and now the captain looked helpless! This would be far easier to tolerate; he might not even have to kill him. Maybe. It depended.

“So soft…” muttered Sun wonderingly, and as his rough palm laid itself flat against Jiyong’s thigh the younger man exhaled shakily. “Oh, Jiyong, I…”

“Have me however you like,” Jiyong told him, and climbed onto the chair, knees straddling his skipper, looking down into his face; would Sun like it this way? Would he find Jiyong desirable when he was assertive, or was his helplessness an essential part of his charm? “There’s nothing I can’t do.” Sun let out a strangled sound of arousal and Jiyong felt the usual hardness begin to stir against his arse. Apparently he could charm when he acted willing, too. That was helpful. The captain’s hand slipped between his legs for a moment, cupping him, before he snatched it back – first time with a boy, Jiyong would bet. Maybe he’d prefer Jiyong on his belly so he could pretend he was a woman; that was what Inoue had liked. Then both Sun’s hands were fumbling with the laces on his shirt.

“Anything…? Then let me see you.” Jiyong let him struggle a few more seconds then drew the shirt over his head and tossed it away, and Sun’s hands clasped him, pressed him, squeezed him all over, his delicate bones – which he could do nothing about – and his yielding flesh, which never seemed to turn into muscle. The old man’s hands were jagged with calluses but his touch was gentle, as if Jiyong was something precious. Jiyong found that both insulting – it was obvious Sun still saw him as feeble – and an improvement on the unthinking brutality of some other men.

“What else can I do for you, sir?” Jiyong whispered, bending so his lips touched Sun’s ear. “What about this?” He slid off the chair and sank to his knees, nuzzling his face against the hard length hidden in the man’s nightclothes. Sun groaned hoarsely and touched his hair but didn’t push him onward; and again Jiyong was unsure. Would this brazenness satisfy someone who was attracted to fragility? He was answered when he freed the captain’s cock from its prison and ran his lips along the shaft; he knew how to do it – Lee had taught him everything, and Jiyong had paid him back in the exact currency he deserved. It was better like this, Sun gasping under his tongue and Jiyong feeling nothing but a sense of control; he swallowed until the glans hit the back of his throat, and was rewarded with an ardent moan.

Sun was quaking and almost undone by the time Jiyong took his hand and helped him to the bunk, laid him down and crawled on top of him. Jiyong felt vaguely apprehensive about the physical side of it, in case Sun became a beast once the fucking began, but otherwise he was collected: nothing had happened so far that he hadn’t directed himself. He sucked the bigger man’s cock – Sun had probably lost some bulk with age but he was still taller than Jiyong – a while longer, the sounds lewd in the quiet cabin. He didn’t have anything to help so he made it as slick as possible, stretching himself open with wet fingers; he had been used so much it wasn’t too difficult. He didn’t bother with any of Lee’s sick tricks – his own pleasure was the last thing on his mind, its associations so distasteful to him.

“Will you be…all right, my boy?” Sun asked him. His hands cupped Jiyong’s face, the touch almost respectful if not for his cock straining towards the boy’s buttocks.

“The question is,” said Jiyong with a frosty smile as he positioned himself above his captain, “will _you_ be all right, sir?”

As it transpired, he was.

Afterwards Sun pulled Jiyong down against him, covering him tenderly with a blanket and kissing his face, his hair, showering him with heartfelt compliments. If the gist of those gallant words hadn’t been so galling Jiyong might almost have felt touched; he wasn’t, but it was a mild form of humiliation compared with what might have been if he’d let things go on the way they were – he presumed that at the very least this old man would not want to share him with his crew.

“I did want you,” the captain confessed, his left hand absently stroking Jiyong’s hip and backside. “I didn’t quite understand it; then I _did_ , oh, I did – the first time I saw this exquisite body.” Jiyong rolled his eyes to himself. “But I would never have touched you, not if you hadn’t come to me.” This was met with an icy silence – as if Jiyong would buy that! “I’m so very glad you did,” murmured Sun, oblivious. “My darling Jiyong, my beautiful boy…”

“Sir,” said Jiyong with as much warmth as he could muster; this was probably the perfect time. “Would you do something for me?”

“Anything, you lovely creature,” replied Sun with a yawn. Jiyong slid a persuasive leg across the older man’s.

“Can you teach me navigation?”

“Is that all?” Sun chuckled drowsily. “Yes, my little dumpling, as easy as pie. Is there anything else you’d like…that you might give me another reward for? Anything you’d care to learn?” Jiyong felt himself smile thinly in satisfaction: if he had to fuck, this was certainly the way to leverage it. He should have tried it years ago.

“Yes,” he said firmly, and kissed his skipper’s cheek. “Everything.”

* * *

Jiyong sailed for three seasons with Captain Sun before he returned to the Japanese sealers. He learned more about the trade from that old man than in all his years before, as well as a few things about himself.

It was his first lesson that sex could be used for power – his own power. It was immediately effective in warning the hunters off; one bald statement that his body belonged to their skipper and they retreated. Jiyong couldn’t say they did so with good grace – there’d been some necessary brandishing of the pocket knife and they’d called him a slut and a little viper and a teasing bitch – but it was enough that he didn’t feel in physical danger. Indeed he had seen a spark of unease in their eyes that pleased him very much.

On the other hand it seemed his skills had more or less mesmerized Sun: the captain became sweet, generous, eager to indulge him, and Jiyong exploited those tendencies to the full. With the rest of the crew he presented his usual self, cold and a little withdrawn. He wasn’t exactly a kitten with Sun, either – no amount of play-acting could fully hide his chill – but he was willing to fuck and even show the small affection he could scrape together, and he was fully rewarded. Sun taught him navigation, astronomy, trade rules and the complicated relationships between the different nations’ sealing industries. He taught him the workings of a steamer, how to manage a crew – Jiyong had his own thoughts on that but kept them to himself – how to deal with port officials and lying merchants. In his final season Jiyong rose to become second mate; at twenty-three he finally felt his life was going somewhere.

He wasn’t ungrateful, even if he couldn’t love Sun. The old man was a fair teacher and a considerate lover; he never did anything Jiyong didn’t ask for, and tried his best to please him. Jiyong ignored those efforts at first, basking in the feeling of _neutrality_ that came from sex in which he was forced to feel neither pleasure nor pain. It was absolutely unique in his experience, and made him almost fond of his skipper, particularly when he had taken other jobs in between seasons and met with the usual violence from men he hadn’t been able to subdue. It became a positive pleasure to return to Sun in springtime and take control of his own body again.

There were struggles, of course, with crew members who didn’t understand the privileges he was granted, or who _did_ and made cruel comments about exactly why he was given his promotion. Jiyong found it infuriating, though he didn’t let it affect his strategy; he would pay those sailors back someday, if only in a small way.

The other struggle was with himself, and it had to do with pleasure. One night, at the end of his first season, his neutrality slipped. He and Sun were screwing, Jiyong on his knees with his captain’s arms wrapped round him from behind and hanging on for dear life. Sun was kissing the back of his neck, thrusting into him slowly, and it felt fine; Jiyong was elsewhere, thinking about lines of longitude. Gradually he became aware that the angle had changed, that Sun was – on purpose or not – pushing very close to that devilish place within him, the one Lee had taught Jiyong about and exploited without mercy. Jiyong heard himself let out a faint moan, hips canting up automatically to try for more. He stopped himself, shocked, but to his dismay found he was half hard. What should he do? he thought giddily, biting his lip: ignore it and hope it went away, or indulge it – reclaim that pleasure on his own terms? He had thought it perverse to feel it, once upon a time, but now he began to acknowledge that Park might been right: it wasn’t a moral issue, it was just his body reacting, and _oh_ , he remembered how good it felt. Hesitantly, with the part of himself that still felt unmanly cursing at him, he curled one hand around his penis and began to stroke; he pushed back onto Sun’s cock, angling himself to find that spot, and when he did he cried aloud. Sun made some admiring sound, and Jiyong didn’t care: he wasn’t wrong to feel this! Just so long as he could control it.

The more he did it the better he felt about it, and his skipper was if anything even more affectionate with him. He still disliked all the cooing, the pet-names and the compliments, but Sun gave him enough other things that Jiyong didn’t necessarily want to _kill_ him as such. For the first time ever he began to wonder if it could have been like _this_ with Choi, if he could have ruled the bigger boy with his skills the way he did this man and reaped the benefits without shame. But no: Captain Sun was old and commonplace while Choi was young and extraordinary. Jiyong remembered vividly the sensation of being patronized by him, of Choi following his directions with that pitying little smile playing on his lips. No, he would never have managed to really take control. And so he told himself he had _still_ done the right thing.

* * *

After three useful and tolerable years – which made them the highlight of his life thus far – Jiyong’s time on the Soesae came to an end: Captain Sun was retiring, having finally saved enough for a small pension that would let him return to his wife and grandchildren for good. Jiyong looked at him narrowly when he heard the news; perhaps he had grown bored with their affair and was taking the easy way out?

“No, my little pudding,” smiled Sun several days later, as Jiyong bossed about the seamen who were hauling the skipper’s trunks across to the wharf, there to be loaded on a homeward-bound cart for the final time. “I’m old, and my heart isn’t strong. You might’ve taken years off my life with your antics.” Jiyong paused and scowled at him. “But there’s nothing that could have made my last days at sea happier,” Sun assured him, looking sappy.

“What do I do now, sir?” said Jiyong gruffly; he wasn’t quite sure how to feel, but the pragmatic chill came and dealt with that.

“I’ve written a reference for you.” Sun passed it to him. “Whatever good it’ll do on those foreign ships. Still, it’s fairly glowing; if they can see the value of what’s in front of them you should go straight into a second mate’s berth. Maybe even first mate, on a small sealer.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“To tell the truth,” went on Sun, “if I could see you well placed and well cared for, I think I could die content.” Jiyong clicked his tongue, tying up a last box of the captain’s personal items. As if he needed to be cared for! If Sun wanted the satisfaction of dying Jiyong could oblige him anytime. “But I’m sure you’ll do very well on your own,” the old man added, somewhat redeeming himself. “You’re a clever little thing, and very dear to me.”

“I know, sir.” Jiyong walked across to him, bent and let Sun kiss him.

“Now,” said Sun, in a voice that quavered slightly, “is there anything else I can give you? Anything you’d like as a keepsake?” Jiyong stared, familiar with the concept but feeling quite foreign to it. A mark of affection, wasn’t it? The only ‘keepsake’ he had was Choi’s pocket knife, and that was a million miles from being a fond memory. He thought about saying ‘money’, but he was overpaid as it was. Clinically he thought about Sun, the way his desire had forced Jiyong’s hand in the beginning and what the old man had done for him since. Then an unplanned thought bypassed the well of cold in his stomach, and he piped up:

“I want your cane.” Sun looked bamboozled, as was Jiyong. Now why had he said that?

“Now why do you say that?” echoed the older man with a puzzled smile.

“…It’s control,” answered Jiyong, understanding as he spoke. He had never seen Sun without it, and over time its associations must have sunk deep in his mind. “Contentment. It’s holding yourself up, it’s being a _captain_ – it’s you, sir.”

“You’re a sweet young man,” said Sun very fondly. He kissed Jiyong again, then felt around by the side of his chair and held up the heavy black cane. “Here. You’re going to look awfully strange with it, but if it makes you think well of me you’re welcome to it.” Jiyong took it, gripped the weighted head in his hand. It did make him think of Sun, but attached to that it carried his hopes for himself: power – captain – _success_.

“ _Thank you_ , sir.”

“Well, now you’ll have to help me on deck.” Jiyong put his arms around his skipper and led him up above, to leave his old ship for the last time. He didn’t cry, but he did feel _something_. All in all it was a red letter day.

That night Jiyong used his new cane to beat down several of his drunken former crew members in various alleys around town: every man who had insinuated he was a whore or that he wasn’t strong enough to deserve his place. It was a good gift, he thought with satisfaction.

* * *

Five months later Jiyong returned to Busan. It felt almost like a home to him, not in a sentimental way but a practical one: he knew its customs, and he was sure he’d find a good berth there. Mostly he was triumphant that Lee had not been able to keep him out, and that he was finally over his past enough that he could focus coolly on the future.

He slipped into the jumak next to the port office, worn out with interviewing and being told ‘maybe’: as Sun had predicted, the Japanese captains were less than impressed with Korean credentials. Most thought he was too young for a mate – none of them believed him when he told them his age – or had insufficient ‘natural authority’. Still, one or two officers had told him to come back tomorrow; he guessed they were hedging their bets. In the meantime he’d heard of a few Korean sealers recruiting men, though that was becoming a rare thing these days: as Jiyong had predicted, the Japanese had made themselves leaders of the industry. One such vessel, the Seonmi, was said to be drumming up hands in the public house, and so here Jiyong was.

There was quite a crowd of interested men, all Koreans by the sound of it, gathered around the customary long table at the back of the room. Jiyong wove past the drinkers with his precious letters in his shirt, standing on tiptoe to find a way through; with some judicious pokes of his cane he half cleared a path, then blinked as he saw the back of a familiar head.

“ _Jiyong_!” exclaimed Taesu, once he’d turned at the prod between his shoulders. “I never thought I'd see _you_ again! Where’ve you been all these years?!” Jiyong found himself half-throttled in the embrace of the younger man, grown up even taller now and obviously unaware of his own strength.

“Been working out of Chelumpo,” he replied when Taesu finally let go.

“I thought you’d fallen overboard somewhere! You never came to find me after the Nancho, and I met the _prettiest_ girls-”

“I…got called away.” If there was one man who wouldn’t suspect Jiyong of having a hand in Lee’s death it was this amiable fool.

“Too bad about Captain Lee,” said Taesu, proving him right. “Did you find another good place, though?”

“Better than _that_ one, anyway,” Jiyong assured him, suppressing his distaste with the reminder that Taesu didn’t mean anything by it. “You?”

“Yeah, for a bit. But I don’t like working for the Japanese and it’s hard to find Korean-owned sealers lately.” Jiyong remembered his bunkmate’s lack of ambition, which combined with his apparent abundance of patriotism must make it hard to find a spot. “I’m aiming for a boat-puller’s berth today.” A sour glance at the swell of the bigger man’s biceps beneath his coat made Jiyong think he’d probably get it.

“I’m hoping for second mate,” he confided. “Thought it might be easier on a Korean ship.” Taesu nodded approvingly.

“You always did have a brain. But looks like we’re in for a long wait to find out.”

He seemed content to wait his turn. Jiyong instead regarded the milling crowd still blocking their path, then put his cane to work again and resumed his push for the front; Taesu followed in his wake, chuckling, and he didn’t mind. While he wasn’t actively attached to the younger man, Jiyong knew he was safe: he wouldn’t mind sailing with him again. Taesu helpfully nudged aside a hulking sailor, bringing the hiring bench into view. A moment later Jiyong caught a glimpse of the ship’s officers – and stopped in his tracks. Taesu made an inquiring noise but he couldn’t respond, could think of anything except –

 _Choi_. It was him – it could be no-one else, nobody else in the world had that profile! He was lounging in an attitude that showed off his powerful body, even bigger than Jiyong remembered, and was staring up at a prospective sailor in a way that made the seaman seem on much the same level as a beetle in a glass case. His face had become a little more sculpted and the line of his mouth was set in a kind of grim sarcasm, but not much else had changed: he looked positively brimming with natural authority. Choi! thought Jiyong again, in his shock and dismay almost speaking the man’s first name aloud, as if he wanted his former sibling to look at him. He had completely forgotten his surprise at meeting Taesu under this new avalanche of feelings; he searched for his ball of cold but couldn’t find it, remembering the sweet sensation of that long-ago kiss and the devastation that had followed it. And there was the cause of it all: Choi, back from America and large as life, and apparently comfortable as could be in his position of – Jiyong risked another glimpse of the table – _first mate_. He was sitting by the captain, now leaning across to address him confidently. Jiyong couldn’t hear his voice but whatever he was saying the captain was acquiescing to it. First mate, damn him, respected and attended to: a _success_.

Without meaning to Jiyong hit out with his cane, and at Taesu’s loud yelp of protest Choi’s handsome head snapped round, eagerly seeking the source of the conflict. For an instant his eyes met Jiyong’s and the younger man froze.

“ _Jiyong_!!” bellowed Choi, recognizing him as instantly as Jiyong had known him. That roar set him free and he was running, running from Choi and the memories of his weakness and every dream that bastard had forced on him in the decade since they’d parted. Taesu called out but he barely heard him. A crash from the back of the tavern told him Choi was in pursuit, but here Jiyong felt the advantage of his smallness and slyness – and Busan was his home port. He wove and jigged through the crowds and the back streets, taking a labyrinthian route away from the docks.

When he came to a halt, panting, he felt a wave of nausea sweep over him; probably from that sprint. Possibly the image of Choi in the jumak, besting him without even knowing it was a competition. But Jiyong had won _this_ race, hadn’t he? It had taken several minutes to recover his chill, but by forcing himself he managed to quell his aching heart. He looked around, saw no-one he knew, and walked quietly back to the docks: he needed to find a ship and get out of here! He found himself at the far end from the port office – just as well – and wandered past the ships in dry dock: some pretty, old-fashioned schooners, a ferry. Another in the process of being launched. Jiyong rested his pack on the dusty road, leaned against a fence, and watched her being tugged carefully into the water. She was a steamship, and from the little bit of her deck that he could see she might be a sealer or a small whaler. Ducking under the fence he strolled towards her, not exactly hopeful – she was nowhere near ready to put to sea – but curious. And as he came closer and saw her full length he had his curiosity answered tenfold, an echo of the shock he had felt upon seeing Choi: she was the Nancho! Lee, the wealthy son of a bitch, had been very particular about the modeling of his ship; there was no doubt about it, although she’d been repainted and stripped bare.

“…Is she going out this season?” Jiyong called to a group of watching men as he hurried down to the wharf. One turned to him: an engineer’s assistant, most likely.

“No, mate, still being overhauled inside. She’ll take some test voyages this time and do the sealing run next year but the new owners don’t want her used for cargo: it’s huntin’ and fishin’ all the way.” New owners, thought Jiyong: Lee’s sister must have finally sold her. He didn’t blame her. He’d like to see the ship again, though, naked and clean inside; it would be good for him, he sensed: a way to remake his memories.

“Who’re the new owners?”

“Japanese merchant company,” came the answer. “They’re buying up everything these days, right?”

“You think they’ll recruit Korean crew?” said Jiyong wistfully. “They ought to, if they’re going to be based in Busan. I used to berth in the Nancho,” he added coolly when the man blinked at his chatter.

“Nancho?” put in another dock worker, overhearing. “Nah, they renamed her; some Imperialist bull, I guess.”

“Oh. To what?” inquired Jiyong. As he spoke the former Nancho swung slowly, nudged by the tugboats, to present her newly-painted stern. Jiyong’s Japanese had improved a lot since he joined the Rina, and now he read in bold white characters: _Fusan-Maru_.

* * *

The ghost of his ship dissolved as an irritating pain tapped against the walls of his reverie. Jiyong blinked and looked down, and when he saw his hand in Seunghyun’s he was thrown back into the present; his brother was squeezing it so tight he could feel his bones creak. Taking an unsteady breath Jiyong pushed the long-ago memories aside: his rule over the Fusan-Maru was in his past now, he’d resigned her at the end of the season – Seunghyun and the Neukdae were his future. But as soon as he raised his eyes again he remembered _why_ the memories had begun: Inoue, his first. Jiyong had looked for him over the years, once he’d grown used to punishing the men who’d done him wrong. He’d never found him; there were so many things that could happen to a man at sea, and Inoue had been an objectionable animal even on land – it had been easy to presume he was dead. And all these years he’d been peacefully growing old!

“What are you going to do?” came Seunghyun’s deep voice, urgent as if he’d repeated himself several times already. “ _Jiyong_.” Jiyong turned to him, saw his eyes gleaming while the rest of his face betrayed his concern; his grip was still hurting.

“Wait ‘til he leaves, follow him, jump him.” Another squeeze. “Lay off; you’re gonna break my hand.” Seunghyun eased up minutely but clung on as if frightened to let go.

“And then what?”

“Don’t tell me I shouldn’t,” Jiyong warned. That cascade of memories had revived his old resentment, sharpened the icicles that his new relationship with his brother had begun to warm. If Seunghyun tried to act protective now, after all Jiyong’s years of struggle to become strong, then Inoue might not be the only one in for some righteous violence tonight.

“You should,” Seunghyun assured him, leaning closer. “I only wanted to join in.” His breath touched Jiyong’s ear. “But if you won’t let me you can at least give me all the details.” Ah. Jiyong knew that tone: Seunghyun was excited: the prospect of Jiyong’s vengeance _titillated_ him. But he’d have to damn well wait.

“Later. I have to think.”

“Oh, very well.” The older man sat back, resigned; he did not let go of Jiyong’s hand.

The jumak grew more crowded: a ship had come in and her crew naturally made a beeline for the liquor. Jiyong kept a fixed eye on Inoue, unable to look away, running through a range of scenarios as to what would happen when the time came. Meanwhile Seunghyun made the most of the new sailors’ increasing intoxication and managed to recruit three men for the Neukdae; they might come to their senses when they sobered up, but it was always worth a try.

For a few seconds Jiyong lost sight of the far table among the groups of seamen. A prick of anxiety nudged at him, though his exterior remained cool. When the crowd momentarily cleared Jiyong knew he was right to feel it: Inoue was _gone_.

“Seunghyun!” He leapt to his feet and the older man snapped to attention, springing up to tower over him. “I have to go, I have to go _now_.” Seunghyun nodded, skirting the table with one hand to help him while the other held tight to Jiyong’s. At the last second Jiyong remembered to snatch up his cane, and then he was being tugged towards the door – Seunghyun _did_ remember where it was. The big man had quite good spatial awareness, and anyone he couldn’t see somehow sensed it would be a wise idea to move aside when he barreled into them. They made it through the open door, scattering a group of incoming sailors like kindling; then the breeze hit Seunghyun’s face and he paused.

“Where? Jiyong, where?” Jiyong stared around frantically: the main street leading to the wharves, smaller dirt roads branching off and winding away; a gaggle of women, heads down so as not to draw rude attention, some officials in tall hats, the odd boy – and turning into a distant side street was Inoue’s gray head. Without bothering to cry ‘there!’ Jiyong began running, hand attached to his brother’s to lead him; Seunghyun’s stride was longer, of course, but he was forced to hang behind or lose his way.

“Left!” hissed Jiyong, tugging him into the side street at speed. He could see Inoue up ahead before he vanished in another tangle of paths. The small street was not busy but seemed full of frustrating obstacles that were easy for Jiyong to navigate – and felt as if they had been put there on purpose for a blind man to fall over. “Hurry up!” he cried, a feeling of panic seeping into the stern focus of the chase he usually experienced at these times: Inoue could step into an inn or house at any moment – Jiyong had no idea where he was staying – and be _gone_ again. The idea that he had come so close only to fail, incensed him. Without even being aware of it he wrenched his hand away from his brother’s and put on speed, finally free to pursue his quarry the way he needed to.

“Jiyong!” cried Seunghyun from behind him, vexation and something close to distress in his deep voice. “You can’t _leave_ me here.” Jiyong stuttered to a halt, cursing under his breath. He had never heard Seunghyun like that before. Of course he hadn’t, Seunghyun knew the Neukdae like his own body and would never feel lost on her; and every time they’d come on land they had been practically sewn together. It occurred to Jiyong, in this very urgent damn moment, that having dominance over his blind brother meant something else too: he had a responsibility to protect him. If he left now, to hunt down and punish Inoue alone, Seunghyun would try and follow him – the stubborn bastard. Yes, the man was a genius, but Busan was not his home port and they were very near the wharf; Seunghyun could fall in, hit his big brilliant head and drown! Jiyong knew how good he was at getting into scrapes; it was exactly the kind of idiotic thing he would do: all brains and no restraint.

“Dammit,” he growled, and turned back. When he felt Jiyong touch his arm Seunghyun’s face relaxed into the proud confidence that had become his natural expression, at least in Jiyong’s observation. “Come on, then, for fuck’s sake. He’s old but he’s not crippled – we have to _run_!”

“You can’t leave me,” Seunghyun insisted as they took off again. “You might _need_ me.”

“Oh, shut up!”

They’d wound through three narrow streets before Jiyong acknowledged that running wasn’t going to help them now. Panting, he slowed to a walk, Seunghyun silent and un-winded at his shoulder. Jiyong suddenly wanted to hit him, so he did, a sharp nudge with his cane in the side; Inoue could be _anywhere_ , and it was all his fault.

“Did we lose him?” muttered Seunghyun, clearly guessing why he’d been struck. He sounded almost as angry as Jiyong felt.

“Hush. Maybe.” Jiyong peered around the dark street. “I’m going to check, all right? I’ll head to the end of this street, take a look, turn down the next alley and loop back in a square. You just stay here; I’ll be quick.” Seunghyun growled, displeased.

“If you see him…”

“If I see him I’ll fix which way he’s going and come back for you.” Skeptical silence. “I _will_ ,” Jiyong insisted. For a moment he thought Seunghyun wouldn’t let go of his hand; Jiyong yanked his arm back, and at last he did. Leaving his brother sitting crossly on an empty barrel, the younger man flew silently along the street.

He did as he had said – at first. There was no sign of Inoue at the end of the street so Jiyong turned down the parallel alley; he looked into the even smaller paths between each building, and at the far end of one he thought he spied a man, tall and spare. He couldn’t see all that clearly but his instincts began screaming and pointing: it was _him_. Jiyong bit his lip hard: he couldn’t tell where Inoue was going. If he went back for Seunghyun now he might lose him again! He should, Seunghyun had been so insistent – but he just _couldn’t_. Quietly, slinking beneath the dark eaves of the buildings, Jiyong started along the path in pursuit.

It didn’t take long to catch up with him, even creeping along: Inoue was very drunk. As he closed on him Jiyong could see he had a flask in hand, topping himself up as he went. This should be simple; he’d been fantasizing about drawing it out, if he could gag the bastard he ought to have plenty of time. But now he resolved to make it quick, a clean ending for a filthy beginning; then he could hurry back to Seunghyun. He waited until Inoue was ambling along the narrow alley between what looked like a store and a half-built lot. One velvet step at a time Jiyong approached him, crept up behind him, and dealt him a ringing blow to the head with the weighted end of his cane.

“Agh!” It didn’t kill him – it wasn’t intended to – but Jiyong was amazed when Inoue didn’t fall right over; he must have a skull like a bear! It had _always_ worked before. Instead the old man staggered, clutched at his head, and swung round with a growl. Perhaps his soaking in soju meant he couldn’t feel as much, thought Jiyong, drawing back. Then Inoue met his eyes. For a long second Jiyong was a frightened young boy again: beneath the liquor fumes he could smell tobacco and fish, feel the rough threads of the blanket and the impact of Inoue’s fist. _Memories_ , he told himself furiously, and managed to leap back further as the tall man swung for him. Inoue lowered his gaze to the cane, watching for movement – he must be a veteran of many fights. There had been no recognition when he looked Jiyong in the eye, none at all, and that made the smaller man terribly, illogically angry. “You want money, I ain’t got any,” stated Inoue loudly; Jiyong’s scalp prickled – that _voice_.

“Not money,” he said, palming the pocket knife. “Just you.”

“How’s that?” Inoue peered at him, blinking in the dim moonlight.

“You know me,” said Jiyong, his jaw clenched. “You _knew_ me.” He inhaled sharply. “You knew me in a way no-one else had. And now I’ve found you again.” The older man looked bemused.

“I don’t recognize you – sod off and leave me be. I’m in no mood to play riddles with little men who think they know how to use a stick.”

“Recognize _this_?” Jiyong turned his face to the dim light, displaying his scar. Inoue furrowed his brow, appeared to think about it, but eventually shrugged. Maybe it was his age, maybe the alcohol; either way, Jiyong found it absolutely insulting. “How about this?” he asked sweetly. He signaled his move clearly, raising the cane with his right hand and sending it swinging at Inoue’s left side. As he’d guessed the old sailor anticipated it and knocked it aside, grabbing for it. They scuffled for a second; then Inoue curled over as Jiyong’s free hand sank the blade of the pocket knife into his belly, the stroke he had tried and failed at so many years ago.

“God…!” Inoue cried out, staggering, drawing Jiyong with him. Jiyong could see the pain as it reached his eyes, and it felt so _good_. “You…fuckin’ _brat_!” the bigger man snarled, warmth running over his stomach, over Jiyong’s hand. Jiyong made to yank the knife out and stab him again, in the chest this time; but to his consternation Inoue’s large hand closed over his own, his grip shaking but vice-like on Jiyong’s smaller fingers, crushing them against the knife’s handle. With his other arm he tugged fiercely at the cane, propelling Jiyong into him. Jiyong fought to regain control of it but Inoue twisted his wrist until the shorter man went white with pain and let go. Inoue stumbled forward against him and groaned as it pushed the knife even deeper; the cane fell from his grip. Somehow he still had the strength to strike Jiyong in the face and grab him by the hair, a move that sent Jiyong barreling into the past again.

“ _Let go_ ,” he hissed, twisting the knife within Inoue’s grasp; if he could just wrest a little control of his hand back he could slice upwards, opening the man’s stomach. “You wanna die hard, you stupid old bastard?!”

“Could…say the same to you.” Inoue’s hand transferred itself from Jiyong’s hair to his throat, squeezing down to illustrate his point. How could a man this old be so strong?! Jiyong’s other hand fumbled at his back: he still had his pistol! Suddenly he could breathe again, but he soon realized it was because Inoue had let go to grab his wrist. The bigger man grabbed the gun, ripped it out of his belt, and flung it aside before squeezing down on his airway again. “I _do_ know you, boy. I forget your name, but…the scar, the knife…” He tightened his grip. “This fragile little neck… You got quick, huh?”

“I…got strong…!” Jiyong managed, gasping for air, hand clawing at Inoue’s. The older man made a pained noise, wincing; then he laughed.

“Sounds funny with my hand round your throat – not to mention that tiny pistol of yours.” Jiyong wanted to spit at him that there was more than one way to be strong, that he had learned it at last and that a dozen dead bodies would attest to it. But he couldn’t speak, could only squeak pathetically as the air was crushed out of him. Which would give first? he wondered, starting to feel faint and distant: Inoue’s grip on his knife hand or his own grip on consciousness? Inoue had always underestimated Jiyong, but tonight _he_ had been just as stupid – and one of them was about to pay the price. “You were…a good lay,” Inoue growled with effort, as Jiyong’s vision began to turn dark. “But…all things considered not worth the hassle…”

Jiyong bared his teeth, or at least intended to: he was losing control of his limbs, and had never in all his life felt weaker. Then, behind Inoue’s labored laughter, he heard something foreign to their little circle of injury: a low growl. Directly afterwards Jiyong felt himself yanked forward by the throat. He choked and almost fell, and then the hand was gone and he _did_ fall, heaving in beautiful salty air on his knees. His knife was on the ground, wet and gory. In disbelief Jiyong looked up – it hurt like hell to move his wrenched neck – and saw Inoue standing on tiptoe above him, wrapped from behind in another man’s tight embrace. Jiyong began to laugh: it was Seunghyun.

“Jiyongie’s always worth the hassle,” Seunghyun said calmly, staring at nothing with one arm locked around Inoue’s throat, the other holding him almost off the ground as he bled from the wound in his belly. “Even if it lasts thirty years.” Jiyong opened his mouth, wanting to ask how the hell he had _got_ here; when he tried he couldn’t speak. “I went where you told me you’d go,” Seunghyun announced to the general vicinity, grappling with the injured man to hold him still. “Then I asked someone. Then I wandered around where they said they’d seen you – falling on my arse about five times, thank you very much. And at last I heard you; or at least I heard _this_ animal.” He gave Inoue a shake. “The rest was just instinct!” A pause. “…Jiyong?”

“You…” managed Jiyong in a rattle. At the sound of his voice Seunghyun’s face broke into a wolfish smile and his damaged eyes flicked down.

“If you bawl me out for sticking my oar in we’re going to have a real fight later,” he informed the younger man. “I’m not here to steal your thunder or make your vengeance any less sweet: I’m just your assistant – here to act on your command.” Jiyong got to his knees with difficulty, shaking his head: the things that put his brother in a good mood were thoroughly bizarre. But he hadn’t made a move to dispatch Inoue himself – and he must be dying to – he was restraining himself because he accepted this was _Jiyong’s_ job. Could Jiyong accept his help, his support? The warmth in his chest and the air in his lungs told him that at last, after all these long years, he might be able to – if it meant he could end this. Inoue groaned and Seunghyun kneed him casually in the spine. “Brother, he’s getting heavy; if you’re planning on waiting for him to bleed out we’ll be here all damn night. Can you stand up? I want you to do it, I want to _hear_ it…”

At that Jiyong felt a surge of purpose. With an effort he reached for the bloody knife, almost toppling into the dirt but catching himself, and after a number of rasping breaths he dragged himself to his feet. There were so many ways to do this, but Seunghyun was right: it needed to be over, to avoid potential witnesses if nothing else. So Jiyong would be kind: he would give Seunghyun a gift. Walking stiffly over to the grisly tableau he stepped in until his chest was pressed against Inoue’s midriff; the bastard scrabbled at him weakly and groaned, and Jiyong slashed at his hands until he quit.

“Seunghyun,” he said as best he could, the breath whistling in his throat. “Can you see me?”

“I see you,” his brother replied, tilting his head forward to fix him with those enormous eyes; he sounded utterly besotted. Jiyong smiled at him, raised his hand, and with a swift strike slammed the blade into Inoue’s forehead. The man shrieked. It was more a symbolic blow than a practical one, the skull was thick and Jiyong had to wiggle the knife to prise it out. Before Inoue could make another sound he pierced him behind the jaw and methodically cut his throat from ear to ear, the ike jime method he had learned killing tuna on this man’s ship; he stepped aside hurriedly to avoid the worst of the blood spray, but inevitably felt some of it hit his face. It was an indescribably satisfying sensation, a feeling of completeness – and when he looked up at Seunghyun, watching him raptly with the struggling body still in his arms, he experienced a great flood of wellbeing.

“You’re _covered_ in blood,” said Seunghyun after a minute. He looked awed. “But I think I tripped over a water trough one alley along; we can get cleaned up.”

“…I did it,” whispered Jiyong, clutching Seunghyun’s knife to his chest, and his voice turned triumphant as he added: “That’s all of them – at last.” Seunghyun regarded him over Inoue’s shoulder, breath catching in his throat.

“I love you so much,” he said solemnly, respect and worship in his magnificent eyes. “You’re the strongest man I ever met.”

Jiyong’s smile widened while his own eyes grew wet: he could have wished to hear nothing better. Seunghyun dropped the body, his arms reaching out, and Jiyong stepped across it to be enfolded by them. He touched his brother’s jaw, drew his head down and kissed him. Seunghyun was right, he _was_ strong – and between them they would make themselves the greatest success from here to the Arctic Circle. He took Seunghyun by the hand, linked their fingers together, and led him away from the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there we go! Obviously there were quite a few years between the end point of the flashback and the beginning of the main fic, but you can fill in the rest of Jiyong's development for yourself :)  
> (Including how he finally gets his hands on the Fusan-Maru after several years of it being used by the Japanese, then captured and used as a Russian transport during the Russo-Japanese war, then eventually sold back and returned to Busan ^^)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this prequel/sequel (though given the content that might be optimistic!). Do drop me a line if you did :)
> 
> Right, back to the fic I'm _supposed_ to be writing...


End file.
